Delectation
by Faelai
Summary: post Requiem: Mulder is returned and our duo discover that nothing ever turns out as planned and that sometimes, miracles really do occur. . .
1. Delectation: Part One of Six

Title: Delectation

Author: Emily O'Donnell

E-Mail: Undothought@yahoo.com

Category: MSR, babyfic, (but then again, its a post Requiem fic, it has to be babyfic...) a touch of angst for all...

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: You know the stuff, these characters obviously don't belong to me because if they did Mulder and Scully would have gotten over themselves and gotten together a long time ago. They were created by Chris Carter and the Fox network, but the two belong solely to each other. The rest, Marita, Krycek, The Lone Gunmen, Skinner, all not mine either. 

Spoilers: Oh gee, um, obviously Requiem, the pilot episode, deep throat, Tooms, The Erlenmyer Flask, The Blessing Way and Paper Clip, War of the Copraphages, Pusher, The Field Where I Died, Small Potatoes, Memento Mori, Redux one and two, Emily and Christmas Carol The End, The X-Files Movie: Fight the Future, Triangle, The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati, En Ami, All Things, Closure. That all? Damn that's a lot!

Timeline: Post Requiem

Note: This story was originally written in the June of 2000 labled, Coming Home, after some feedback and editing I changed the title of the story to Delectation. Those that caught it the first time around may understand it a little better now, and if you didn't catch it then, more the better I guess. 

Delectation 1/6

The first thing he noticed as he awoke, was the pain. It was sharp and piercing, and for all of his brilliance, he could not figure out what had caused it. As consciousness slowly filtered through to his tired mind one thought echoed in his brain, one name that had grown so cherished over the years. 

'Scully...' his weary mind, usually so alert hissed at him. Her name slid across his brain, sinking in until he remembered the last time he had seen his beautiful partner. The two of them had been standing together in a hallway, unwilling to part for some reason. 'Why did she want to come?' He wondered 

faintly, the events of the past days hazy and unsure. Days? Was that even right? He could have been there just a few hours, or years, he would never know. Maybe he woke up every day like this, having to relive those past moments with his partner. 'Why did I want to go? To leave her? Where did I go?' Scully had drawn him close, whispered with a broken heart, 'I won't let you go alone...' she had handed him her necklace then, he reached up to grasp the small metal cross that hung around his neck. She had kissed him sweetly, for a few all too brief seconds, and he had been gone...what had happened after that blurred in his mind...

With a start he remembered. Remembered Skinner helping him, remembered walking, pulled on by an unseen force. Being driven towards where he did not want to go. Then a flash of light...and nothing. The next thing he had been aware of was now, and the pain that still arched through him. It was a bit ludicrous on his part, he reflected faintly. All his life he had searched for the truth, and he had found it in that clearing, where all the abductees had stood, beckoning him silently. And he had not wanted to go, he had not wanted to leave. He knew in the back of his mind that if it had been a few years earlier, he would have gone to them without a second thought. But he had not wanted to go, not really. There had been one thing holding him back, one thing worth clinging to amidst the madness, Scully. He had wanted to turn from that light the minute he had seen it, he had wanted to run far away, and return to his Scully.

But he had found himself frozen, rooted to the spot, staring in awe at the brilliant thing that had taken him away from her. And he could not run, he could not go back, and they had taken him, like they had taken her. All these thoughts passed through his mind in a few moments, and then slowly, he opened his eyes. 

The room he was in was bare, save for the cold table he had been laying on. Surprisingly, he found that there was no tubes attached to him, nothing. The room was bare, he could see no door. The only thing he could see was a mirror, a single mirror seeming so out of place in the stark room he almost laughed. But there was nothing funny about the situation. He stood slowly, wincing in pain and wondering how long he had been there, and what they had done to him, and why he could not remember. He made his way cautiously over to the mirror and reached out a hand to touch the cool solid surface. Instead his hand pushed through it slightly, causing ripples in the reflection of his tired, lined face. He found it was like he was pushing through jelly, agonizingly slow. He pushed harder and found his hand turned back to meet him. He frowned slightly and pulled his hand away, letting it drop to his side. A slight breeze swirled around him from an unknown, unseen, opening in the room. On the zephyr he found his name being whispered. 

"Mulder..."

The voice was familiar, and he frowned, trying to place it. "Who are you?" He whispered to the air. "What do you want from me?"

The current came again, blowing in lazy invisible circles around him. 

"The question is," the near silent whisper continued, "What do you want?"

Fox Mulder frowned and glanced around, searching for the voice or where it could possibly be coming from. "What do you mean?" He asked in a near whisper, matching the hiss of air. 

"I mean..." came the hiss. "I mean, what do you want most. Just say the word, and you will see it..." Mulder frowned and glanced back to the mirror. "That's easy," he whispered, more to himself than to the almost ethereal voice. His heart contracted and he fingered the smooth metal of the necklace as he whispered, "The only thing I want, the only one I need is her...Scully." As he spoke, the image of him on the surface on the mirror shimmered and changed. The image twisted and changed until his partner's beautiful face appeared. 

The three Lone Gunmen stood beside her, they were discussing something, their voices were inaudible but by the tension on the faces of all four of them, Mulder knew it was serious. Slowly, the voices grew louder and he could see Frohike glance at Scully in alarm and faintly he could hear him say, "--Mulder is the one in danger..." As he trailed off Mulder could see his partner sway and stumble. Mulder drew in a sharp breath as the three men all turned to catch her. 

"No," Mulder whispered, reaching out to touch his partner, his best friend and he silently cursed himself. If her cancer returned and he wasn't there...he couldn't bear to finish the thought, he would never forgive himself. "Scully!" He shouted at the mirror, tears welled up in his eyes and he had the 

oddest feeling that he was being laughed at. The image on the screen dissolved as the three Lone Gunmen approached her again, she was sitting in a hospital bed, looking extremely tired. 

Scully smiled faintly at the three of them as they approached her bedside in the stark hospital room. "What is it guys?" She glanced around and frowned. When she glanced back up at the three of them and their somber faces and spoke again Mulder could hear her voice waver just slightly. "And where is Mulder?" She asked, not wanting to hear the answer. Langly bit his lip and glanced away, Byers sighed and took her hand as Frohike spoke the words she somehow already knew in her heart.

"They took him, Agent Scully. Skinner was there, and he couldn't stop them. Mulder's...Mulder is gone." Scully nodded slightly, biting her lip to keep the tears from spilling over. She drew in a shuddering breath and dropped Byers' hand. "Can I just..." She looked up at the three of them, imploring with her eyes. They nodded slowly and exited the room, leaving Scully to her grief.

Scully stared out the window for a long moment, with a dead feeling in her heart. Mulder watched as the tears silently began to slip down her cheeks and found himself crying as well. "No, don't cry for me, Scully. I'm sorry, I am so sorry..." His words were a jagged hiss as he slumped to the ground in front of the cursed full length mirror. His tears flowed freely and he buried his head in his hands, not wanting to see the next scene. But he heard Scully's voice again and glanced back up at the mirror. Scully's tears had finally ceased as she glanced down to her stomach, caressing it gently. "Mulder..." She whispered brokenly. "Mulder...I love you..."

Mulder suddenly found it difficult to breathe at her emotion filled confession. Could it be true? Did she really love him? He knew she cared about him, loved him as a friend, but could someone like Dana Scully really be in love with him? 

With a sudden heart breaking clarity he saw it had to be true. All that had happened to her over the years, all the chances she had had to leave, to walk away, all the chances he had presented to her, she had always refused to go, she would never have stayed unless she loved him. 

And now it was too late to tell her that he loved her too, because he did, with all his heart. He loved her more than his work, more than this quest he had been on for so many years. He loved his partner, Dana Scully more than anything in the world, more than his own life. 

And now it was too late...

"Scully," he whispered as he reached out to try to touch her beautiful face that was reflected in the odd surface. "Scully, I love you too..."

At his touch, the image rippled again and the scene changed, he could see the time lapse in the movement of the light pouring in through the window and the shadows slanted across his partner's already cloudy expression. She sat, speaking with Skinner.

"I lost him," he was saying, Mulder was astonished to see tears glistening in his boss's eyes. Scully nodded and whispered with a voice so choked with emotion it made Mulder want to weep again. "We will find him," she choked out forcefully. She glanced down at her stomach and twisted her hands. "I have to," her exquisite features were contorted with a dozen different emotions at the words. Mulder found himself focused on her face, barely noticing when she spoke again.

"--Something I'm still finding hard to believe myself," Mulder distantly heard her and he snapped to attention again. A long breathless moment passed until Scully whispered, barely audible, "I'm pregnant."

Mulder stared at the mirror for a long shocked moment. "What?" He hissed, he forced himself to his feet and shook his head in disbelief. "That's impossible..." he trailed off and stood, feeling anger overtake him. He whirled around and shouted up at the grim foreboding walls that seemed to mock him. 

"You Bastards!" He shouted at the mysterious strangers that held him there. "You take me away from her when she needs me most! Bastards!" He threw himself at the walls, searching for a way out, ignoring his blinding pain. "Cowards!" He shouted in fury and despair. "Why don't you show yourself?!? How long have I been here? Why do you do these things to me and then erase my memories? Is this what you did to her? Is this just another sick experiment, her baby, she has wanted it for so long. Are you just going to dangle it in front of her and then take it away?" Mulder found himself shaking with rage and he slumped to the cold glassy floor. After a few moments of rage filled weeping the voice came again. 

"You have to chooose..." It hissed at him. Mulder looked up, "Choose?" He asked, the throbbing in his head was threatening to overtake him. Waves of pain rolled over his body from countless injuries he had sustained during those few weeks he had been tortured and tormented without memory. 

"Choose," the voice was louder now, but still faint and hissing. "Between your life and your partner..." Mulder stared at the white walls for a long time, processing what the voice was saying. "Choose?" He repeated dully, not quite understanding. "But I have already chosen," he glanced up at the walls surrounding him. "Scully is my life, I can't live without her, and she needs me. Please," he pleaded. "Please let me go."

The wind shifted through again and around him, this time the voice was soft, almost gentle. "Then go through."

Mulder frowned and stood slowly, fighting off the weariness and ignoring the pain. "Go through what?"

"The portal..."

Mulder turned to the mirror and slowly understood. He reached out his hand and found that it slipped through much easier now. The other hand followed and he closed his eyes and hurled himself through.

And felt himself falling.

~ ~ ~ ~

Alex Krycek turned to the slim blonde woman standing next to him, she was watching intently as Mulder disappeared through the portal they had placed in the his bare cell. He glanced from her down to the man, if he could be called that, at their feet, green acid pooling around the dead bounty hunter's body.

"What does it do?" He asked her with a furrow of his eyebrows. Marita glanced at him and spoke with her cool, clipped professional voice. "It develops a kind of bubble in the space time continuum, it will return him to where he was taken, and he will remember nothing of what happened to him."

Krycek nodded in understanding, "Maybe that is for the best. After all these years, Mulder and Scully deserve a chance for happiness."

Marita smiled faintly, "We all do."

Krycek shot one last glance towards the now empty room and turned away. "Let's get out of here."

~ ~ ~ ~

Dana Scully sighed as her telephone rang, she glanced down at her still flat, but rapidly swelling stomach and fumbled for her telephone receiver. As she held it up to her ear and mumbled, "Scully," she half expected to hear her partner's wry voice on the other end. Instead she heard the voice of Frohike and the Lone Gunmen.

"Scully," she brightened immediately and sat up in bed, rubbing her sleep weary eyes. For the past two months she and the Lone Gunmen, along with help from Skinner had been searching for Mulder. They had had several leads, but all had been dead ends. She had been surprised to receive help from Ratboy otherwise known as Krycek and Marita Covarubias, but the two of them had disappeared themselves a few months ago without a word. 

"What is it Frohike?" Scully asked with a frown. There was something in his tone of voice that made her suspicious. 

"It's...Mulder," he said. "They've found him." 

Scully jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on some clothes within seconds. "Where?" Was all she managed. 

"Oregon, he's pretty bad, Scully..." But Scully was out of the door before he could finish his sentence.

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully arrived in the Bellafluer Oregon hospital within two hours. Skinner and The Lone Gunmen were right behind her, on the next flight, she knew that, but she didn't care. She needed to see him. She needed to make sure Mulder was okay.

She raced through the hospital doors and to the desk. "Fox Mulder's room number?" She asked breathlessly. The nurse at the desk glanced up in surprise and glanced down at a chart. "Uh, room 1013, but you can't go in there." She called uselessly as Scully raced down the hall.

Scully burst through the door of the bare hospital room and skidded to a stop at the sight of the motionless figure in the bed. Her words instantly came back to her, 'We'll find him. I have to...' And all the silent promises she had made to herself, at that moment, they were pointless. He had returned to her, like he always did.

Slowly, Scully made her way around to the chair and froze at the sight of him. His lanky frame was thin and gaunt. His face was pale and his classic features were shadowed. But no sight had ever been more beautiful to Scully than he was at that moment. She reached out and stroked his face gently, and drew in a ragged breath, unwilling to move for fear it might disturb her partner.

Slowly, she moved to sit down, her eyes never straying from his face. She took his frail hand and grasped it firmly, suddenly knowing how helpless and afraid he had been when she had been in this same state so long ago. She pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed it gently, tears slipping out for the first time. Scully clutched his hand tightly and leaned her head on his chest, weeping for the first time since she had lost him. 

She barely noticed when the doctor appeared in the doorway, frowning at her. "Excuse me, miss?" Scully sat up abruptly and straightened, drying her tears. "Are you family?"

Scully ran a hand through her short auburn hair and bit her lip as she stood and glanced back towards her comatose partner. "I'm all the family he's got," she whispered. 

The doctor nodded and glanced down at the chart in his hand. "Well, we frankly don't know what's wrong with Agent Mulder," his eyes narrowed at something on the chart and he glanced at her appraisingly, "I assume you are Agent Scully, his partner?"

Scully nodded dimly, wanting to return to Mulder's side, but also curious as to his condition. "I'm also his doctor."

The man nodded again and Scully was beginning to grow tired of the motion. "You don't know what's wrong with him?" She echoed dully, knowing that this had been the same thing that had happened to her. 

"No idea, maybe you could shed some light on the situation?" He suggested. Scully returned to her partner and took his hand again. "I think I can try," she whispered. The doctor noted her somberness and nodded again. "This was the only thing he had when he was found," he said softly, holding out a small, familiar object. 

Scully's gold cross that she had given to him two months earlier in a hallway in the FBI building dangled from the doctor's fingertips and she felt her eyes burn with tears once more. With trembling fingers she took the necklace from him, relishing the familiar feel of the cool metal on her skin again. Mulder had managed to keep it, he had managed to keep it for her. 

"Thank you," she whispered softly. The doctor smiled gently in understanding, before slipping out of the room, leaving the two agents in the room.

Scully dangled the cross from her fingertips for a moment, watching as it glinted and gleamed in the afternoon sunlight that drifted in through the window. The reflection of the glimmer played back, resonating against her pale skin. She smiled faintly and turned her eyes back to her partner who lay still, unmoving in the bed. Slowly, she crossed the distance and opened the clasp, settling the chain around his neck where she felt it belonged. She slid down into the chair beside his bed and gripped his hand with her own. 

"Mulder," she began, remembering how she had been so close to death years ago and had lain in a similar hospital bed, drifting away. One thing had brought her back, his voice had penetrated her consciousness and the love she had discovered she had for him had kept her strong, and had brought her back. She knew Mulder had wondered if she had heard him, she had, all too clearly. 

"Mulder," she repeated tearfully, citing his words of long ago. "You have always had the strength of your beliefs. And so have I..." she trailed off and bit her lip. "You are stronger than this, and I won't let you die. I won't." She grinned suddenly, a rueful smile. 

"I can't go on alone, especially not now," she glanced down at her stomach and shook her head. "If we quit now, they win, remember?" She squeezed his hand and brushed a lock of hair from his closed eyes. "Please come back to me, Mulder. I came back to you, damnit, this is the least you can do," she sighed and leaned forward to kiss him softly on the cheek. "And I'm not going anywhere until you do."

Scully sat by Mulder's bedside for hours, just watching Mulder, he was so peaceful, he looked like he was simply asleep, but everytime one of the monitors beeped or a doctor came in to check on him, her heart twinged. She ate what little the understanding nurses brought to her. After awhile, a knock on 

the door roused her from his side. Scully lifted her head from where it had been leaning, against her partner's chest, his hand still clutched tightly in her own, and turned to see Byers, Frohike and Langly standing in the doorway with Skinner, watching her. 

"How is he?" Skinner asked quietly. Scully glanced from Mulder to her three, oddly valued, friends in the doorway. "He's alive," was her simple answer. Skinner nodded in understanding. "I'm going to talk to the doctor," with that he disappeared down the hall, leaving the three Lone Gunmen falling over 

each other to get into the room first. Scully cracked a smile at the three of them, grateful that they were there. She gripped Mulder's hand tightly, trying with all her might to will some warmth into it. Willing him to just wake up and smile at the four of them.

He didn't stir, the monitors didn't even beep. The three computer hackers stood assembled around the bed, gazing down at their friend forlornly. 

Scully gazed at them and a thought occurred to her, "Is this what I looked like? When I was returned?" She asked quietly, she knew that Frohike at least had come to see her back then, and had comforted Mulder.

The three nodded sagely, not wanting to break the stillness around Mulder, for fear that it might break him as well. Scully bit her lip, now knowing, understanding what he had gone through for the first time. "Oh, Mulder," she whispered. "I'm sorry." The three exchanged glances and then looked at her again. 

"You can't blame yourself, Scully," Byers told her gently. "Mulder never blamed you."

Scully nodded, her auburn hair glinting in the late afternoon sun that filtered in through the window across from her. "I know," she glanced up at the three of them. "Thank you for coming."

"It's the least we could do after two months," Langly told her, with that the three also left the room, understanding that Scully needed to be with him.

"Mulder," she began, wanting to get the truth out even if he could not hear her. "Mulder, I don't know if you can hear me, but I need to tell you," she bit back her tears and distantly remembered a time he had tried to make the same confession, in a similar hospital bed, in Bermuda.

"Mulder, we have been through so much these past few years, and in the beginning, I didn't trust you at all. You were out there, you were well, 'spooky'..." she fondly remembered when he had asked her if she thought he was spooky. "But that all changed, I don't know how, I don't know when. But I discovered that you were the only one I trusted. I meant it then and I mean it even more now. You were my partner, but you were so much more. My best friend, my soulmate."

Scully extended a shockingly frail, trembling hand to touch her partner's face with affection as memories flooded her. "When I found out that I might not be your soulmate I was crushed. I hid it well, but I hated that woman who said she was your soulmate. I heard somewhere that we have many soulmates, but only one true one. I knew then and I know now, that you are my true soulmate," her words slid out with every breath, gliding smooth into the air and seeping into Fox Mulder's consciousness.

"I lied when I told you I wouldn't change a day, Mulder. I would have changed only one thing, I would have told you a long time ago how I felt. Instead of letting it build up until here, now that I'm pregnant and you are in a coma," she shook her head, wondering why she should be so nervous, it wasn't as if he could hear her. Her gaze was drawn again to her cross that hung about his neck, it was a symbol of her faith, but to him, it had always been a symbol that she would return to him. She had given it to him two months ago in hopes that it, if not anything else, would be enough to bring him back to her. 

Scully took a deep breath and closed her eyes, plunging ahead with the confession. "Mulder, I trusted you with my life, because you were the only one I could trust. Then I trusted you with my soul, time and again, you pulled through. Now I am trusting you with my heart, because the only reason it is still beating is because these past months I knew you were alive, and I knew I had to find you, for me and our child," Scully smiled through the tears that seeped through her closed eyelids and fondly touched her stomach. "And I knew that I had to tell you what you mean to me, you were always my friend, and my partner. And somewhere along the line, Mulder, I fell in love with you."

Scully drew in a ragged breath and threw a glance at her partner's still form. The moment seemed a bit anticlimactic now, Mulder did not respond. Scully stood and leaned over his bed, to kiss him softly on the forehead. For a long moment, she stood staring down at him, grateful that he was at least there, with her again. She bit her lip and traced the outline of his lips with her slender fingers. A still breathless quality hung in the air. 

And then one of the monitors beeped. Slowly, Scully glanced up at the screen, wondering what was going on.

Then she saw it, his heart monitor had a small blip in one of the lines, showing that his heart had beat just a bit faster for a moment. She turned her astonished gaze from the screen to her partner's calm facade. A slow smile spread across her face and she leaned down to whisper into his ear, "I love you.

Are you hearing me? I love you! Now fight this and come back to me." She grinned a small wicked smile her partner would have been proud of. "I promise I'll make it worth your while..." 

There it was, another blip. 

He could hear her.

Scully whooped in joy and turned, throwing the door open and knocking over several Lone Gunmen in the process.

"What's going on?" Frohike asked, glancing worriedly in the door. "Is he awake?"

"No," Scully replied. "Almost as good, come and see."

The three stumbled through the door behind her as she strode up confidently to the bed. "Look at this," she pointed to his heart lines on the screen, the faint blips still showed from where his heart had jumped at her words.

"But he didn't wake up?" Langly asked, Scully shook her head.

"Well then how?" Byers trailed off and glanced at Scully.

"Like this," she leaned down and kissed her partner on the cheek, whispering, barely discernible. "I love you, Fox Mulder."

Again, there was the blip. The three men exchanged glances and smiled themselves. 

"What does this mean?" Frohike asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "Why doesn't he wake up?"

Scully sighed and shook her head, "I don't know. But I am going to find out."

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully slept fitfully in the hard chair that she had been sitting in, next to her partner's bedside for hours. The Lone Gunmen had gone to tell the doctors about Mulder a few hours ago, Skinner had come in once or twice, to check on the two of them, he had thought she was sleeping.

But the truth was, that even in her sleep, Dana Scully remained alert and concerned for her partner.

She stirred only when the doctor entered the room, to check on Mulder. She opened her eyes slowly and yawned a bit. The doctor, different from the last one was a young man, probably fresh out of medical school, smiled at her. 

"Wouldn't you like a more comfortable chair?" He asked her. Scully groaned, feeling her stiff joints and a slight wave of nausea, morning must be soon, she surmised. "Yes," she agreed, sitting up. She really shouldn't be doing this, not now, now that she was pregnant. She knew if Mulder was awake, he would

be telling her to go home right now, even though he knew she wouldn't.

The doctor nodded and finished his inspection of her partner. "I'll see what we have," with a small wink, he headed towards the door.

Scully smiled in appreciation, then frowned as she rubbed the back of her neck. "Wait," she called to the doctor softly. He turned in concern, "What is it?"

Scully's finger traced the small scar on the back of her neck and gazed at Mulder with consideration. "I'd like you to take an x-ray of him."

The doctor frowned and pushed his light brown hair out of his eyes. "An x-ray?"

"Yes," Scully continued. "Of his neck."

"Any particular reason why?" 

Scully pulled her hand away from her neck and through her tousled hair. "I've seen...patients like this before. And every time they have had a small metal chip in the back of their necks."

The doctor frowned, "A chip?"

"Yes," Scully confirmed, growing extremely tired suddenly. "Can you get the x-ray done quickly?" 

The doctor smiled at her gently, "I'll see what I can do."

Scully nodded at the doctor distractedly as he exited the room. She clutched her partner's hand and prayed that the x-rays would reveal nothing.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Agent Scully?" Dana stirred from Mulder's side at the sound of the familiar voice. She looked up, squinting in the morning sunlight and tried to fight off pangs of morning sickness. She had already vomited once and was still feeling queasy. She ran her slender fingers through her auburn hair and managed a wan smile at Skinner who stood in front of her, clutching a thin folder.

"What is it, sir?" She asked, nodding towards the folder. Skinner glanced down at the folder as if seeing it for the first time. 

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "The nurse gave it to me, told me to give it to you, something about x-rays." At this Scully's face turned pale and she swallowed the bile that suddenly rose in her throat. Slowly, with slightly trembling fingers, she reached forward to slip the folder from his hand.

Crossing over to the other side of the room she pulled the x-ray out of the packet and pinned it up against the lighted board. She flicked the small switch and studied the x-ray closely.

Skinner frowned and tried to determine what she was seeing, or rather, what she wasn't. Then it hit him, the implant. 

"Does he have one too?" He asked softly, not able to read the implacable expression on the woman's face. 

Slowly a tiny, perplexed smile crept across her face. "No," she whispered, she reached up, tracing with her fingertips where she had discovered an implant in her own body years before. It had shown up a small bright dot in her body, and a hole in her life.

But Mulder did not have one. What could this mean?

Skinner studied the woman in the pale sunlight that filtered through the small window. Her hair was tucked back, behind her ears, having lost it's lustrous red sheen days ago. Her body seemed tired, but straight and proud. Her stomach was slightly swollen, that and the thin gloss of perspiration he could 

glistening on her pale forehead and cheeks from nausea, were the only indications of her pregnancy. Despite all this, Scully seemed the picture of the woman he had met years ago, a little older, with a few more lines in her face, a few more scars and a different hairstyle, her familiar golden cross was gone, but for good reason. Scully was different in subtle ways, but she was still Scully. 

The difference, he mused, was in the eyes. Those bright blue eyes, had always been so piercing and penetrating. But back then, they had been the eyes of a girl. An innocent, if not a touch naive, young woman who had no idea of the dreadful and wondrous things she would discover. 

Scully's eyes were older now, wiser beyond her years, smarter, if not sadder. 

But that sadness was overwhelmed right now as Scully's eyes met his own, overwhelmed by relief for her partner's return, and worry for his condition. But most of all, at the moment, he saw confusion there.

"What's wrong? If he doesn't have the chip, then that's a good thing, right?" Skinner asked.

Scully shook her head. "I've been wondering why they took Mulder. All those other abductees, they all had the implants, sir. Mulder didn't, he never did. So why did they take him?" Scully turned back to the board with a frustrated sigh and flicked off the light that illuminated the x-ray. 

"And why in hell doesn't he wake up?"

~ ~ ~ ~


	2. Voices In The Mist: Part Two of Six

Delectation 2/6

Mulder stirred restlessly, pinned inside his body. Where am I? He whispered aloud, his voice was stretched along and carried away on an invisible breeze that made him imperceptible. He frowned and glanced around, he remembered the portal, and going through it, but after that...there was nothing but darkness.

"Mulder..." Scully's voice penetrated the fog that seemed to surround his mind. "Mulder, I don't know if you can hear me, but I need to tell you..."

He frowned, "Scully?" He held his hands out, trying to break through the inky mist that swirled about and through him. But try as he might, he could not break through, not even for her. He could do nothing but listen.

"Mulder, we have been through so much these past few years, and in the beginning, I didn't trust you at all. You were out there, you were well, 'spooky'..." Mulder smiled a bit at this, he could hear the tear filled grin that permeated his partner's voice. The old nickname meant nothing to him anymore, he had once been bitter upon hearing it, Scully had convinced him that the people who called him spooky were just jealous that they were not as brilliant as he was.

In retrospect, Mulder suddenly wondered if his partner had been serious, at the time he had thought she was joking but he had always taken her kind words to heart.

Scully's voice came again, a breeze heard more with his heart than his ears which could hear nothing but the oppressive stillness around him. "But that all changed, I don't know how, I don't know when. But I discovered that you were the only one I trusted. I meant it then and I mean it even more now. You were my partner, but you were so much more. My best friend, my soulmate."

Mulder's breath caught in his throat, he barely noticed that he stopped breathing. He didn't seem to need air wherever he was. "Scully," he called out softly, "Oh, Scully..."

"When I found out that I might not be your soulmate I was crushed. I hid it well, but I hated that woman who said she was your soulmate. I heard somewhere that we have many soulmates, but only one true one. I knew then and I know now, that you are my true soulmate."

Invisible tears pricked at Mulder's eyes as he remembered the case she spoke of. He remembered standing in the field where he had died, feeling lost. And when he looked up, Scully had been waiting for him. She had always been waiting.

"Dana..." he whispered, for some reason compelled to use her first name, as if she could hear him. "She wasn't my soulmate, it was you. Always you."

"I lied when I told you I wouldn't change a day, Mulder. I would have changed only one thing, I would have told you a long time ago how I felt. Instead of letting it build up until we were here, now that I'm pregnant and you are in a coma." 

Mulder rubbed his temple with his fingertips, trying more to ease her pain than his own. A sharp pain reverberated through his soul as he heard her say she was pregnant. He should be there, with her, instead of here...He threw a tortured glance around the bleak landscape, shrouded with a dark mist that, he suddenly noticed, was gradually growing lighter.

"Mulder, I trusted you with my life, because you were the only one I could trust. Then I trusted you with my soul, time and again, you pulled through. Now I am trusting you with my heart, because the only reason it is still beating is because these past months I knew you were alive, and I knew I had to find you, for me and our child."

Mulder bit his lip hard at her words, 'our child...' and suddenly felt the urge to run screaming through the dark mist, despite where it might take him, as long it held the chance of leading him back to his Scully and his unborn child, it was a chance worth taking. Slowly he let the words sink in and he looked up, as if he could see her if he tried hard enough. "A child? My child?" He knew it was possible, he frankly didn't think it could belong to anyone else. He had just assumed that the child had been another experiment by them to hurt the two of them, he had never dared to dream that the child would be normal and healthy...and his.

Mulder stared tearfully around once more, not allowing the unbridled joy that grew in his heart to overtake him until he heard the rest of his partner's message.

" And I knew that I had to tell you what you mean to me, you were always my friend, and my partner. And somewhere along the line, Mulder, I fell in love with you." 

Scully's final words to him came through clear as day, breaking through the dark fog. Mulder choked on a sob, that was twice he had heard her confess her love for him, and yet he had never told her how he felt, and she did not know that he knew she loved him. 

Well, that wasn't completely true. He mused for a second, there was that time in Bermuda, but she thought I was on drugs at the time...

His heart constricted painfully at her tear filled confession and he could practically hear her sigh, and then there was a ghost like caress on his skin, his forehead, Scully had kissed his forehead. And he had felt it.

This woman never ceased to amaze him, he didn't take note that this had been the first time he had felt his own heart beat since he had been in this place. This purgatory...

His heart beat faster as her words swirled around him, and disappeared into the abstruse fog. He wondered how she couldn't hear it, it was beating so fast.

"Scully!" He cried as loudly as his sore vocal cords would allow him. "I love you too! Scully!" The fleeting hope that she could hear him whirled into the haze around him along with his words. There was silence for a long moment, and Mulder was struck by the sudden fear that she had left him, until he heard her once more. This time her voice was brimming with an astonished happiness, one matched by what he felt in his own heart, despite his pain. 

"I love you. Are you hearing me? I love you! Now fight this and come back to me!" Mulder could hear the relief in her ethereal voice and he allowed himself a broad grin at the belief she could hear him. "I promise I'll make it worth your while..." was her final benediction, Mulder laughed, a jarring sound in the silence that almost scolded upon his joy. But he didn't care, his partner loved him! His soulmate had been by his lousy side since day one, and she loved him. That was all that mattered to the man at the moment, not anything else, not even his own detached spirit, hovering outside his body.

"Oh, my sweet Scully, I'm sure you will," he whispered as he welcomed the oncoming darkness, mocking it with his pure delight. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully paced the halls of the hospital restlessly, waiting for the Lone Gunmen to arrive. Skinner had convinced her to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat. She had refused at first, she couldn't bear to be apart from Mulder for so long. But Skinner had persuaded her to go, with the argument that Mulder needed her to stay strong, for him and for their baby that was growing inside of her, the baby needed food.

Scully glanced down at her swelling stomach and cursed her thoughtlessness. She was a doctor, she should know better. She smiled, practically hearing her partner's voice in her mind. She had returned to find that they had taken Mulder for some more tests, she had received this news with a grimace. Is this what they had done to her when she had returned under such mysterious conditions? Scully made a mental note to ask Mulder if he woke up. No! Scully admonished herself. Not if he wakes up, when he wakes up. She started at a touch on her arm which interrupted her musings. She turned, half expecting her partner to be there, but instead she saw Langly pulling his hand away from her arm, Frohike and Byers in tow. 

She sighed in relief, grateful that it had not been some overly concerned doctor and yet irrationally disappointed that it wasn't Mulder.

"I'm glad you guys are here," she said, gesturing to Mulder's empty room where they would have privacy. When inside she shut the door, avoiding looking at the empty bed where her partner should be. She faced the three silent men and smiled inwardly as they each marveled at her quiet strength and dignity. "Now," she said, interrupting their respective thoughts. "I know you guys were here for Mulder when I was returned. And I need to know... how did they bring me back?"

The three exchanged concerned glances. "You mean, Mulder never told you?" Langly asked. Scully shook her head, "He told me he didn't really know, I don't think he wanted to talk about it much," she was dreading the answer she was sure she already knew. 

"It's actually somewhat of a mystery how you came back to consciousness, Agent Scully." Byers, ever the truthful one, informed her. Scully felt her face fall, she was afraid of this. "We never pressed Mulder for details, he simply told us that he thought you were the strongest person he knew to come back from 

near death, and that you must have had a good reason to give up the afterlife and return to this one."

Scully glanced to the empty bed and bit her lip at the memories that assaulted her, "I did..." she murmured softly, averting her face from their prying gazes. Inhaling sharply she decided it was time for plan B.

"Well then," she turned back to the three of them again. "Since I'm not as patient as Mulder to just wait around for him to wake up, we are going to find a way to help him."

The three nodded simultaneously and Scully repressed a smile. "We're on it," Frohike informed her. Scully smiled slightly, of course they were, weren't they always?

"Well," she said with one last remorseful glance towards Mulder's empty hospital bed. "Tell me what we've got."

~ ~ ~ ~

When Mulder opened his eyes again, he felt utterly alone. He knew, somehow that wherever his physical body was, Scully was not with it. He closed his eyes again and cursed under his breath. Where could she be? He wondered. Maybe she was looking for a way to bring him back to his body, that had to be it, Scully was out probably risking her life and their unborn child's life for him.

Mulder cursed himself and the self pitying mood he was in today. He had realized a few days ago that he was not his physical self. His physical self was lying in a hospital room, with Scully or Skinner looking over him. He knew that now, now that he had been trapped in this damn purgatory for who knows how long. He had lost track of the time, if time even existed here. There was no way to tell. The mist continued its perpetual swirling and shifting. Sometimes colors appeared in the fog, this was how Mulder knew, whether he could hear her or not, that is when Scully was with his body.

His body, out in the world where he longed to be. Instead , he was just a floating soul, searching for a way home.

~ ~ ~ ~

"We're not sure exactly how to help Mulder ourselves," Langly was telling Scully as she peered over his shoulder at the computer screen. "That's why we have been looking for someone who can tell us," Byers continued. Scully noticed the way the three of them could finish each others sentences with an unconscious ease that came from years of working together and being friends, a pang of bittersweet memories swept over Scully for a split second as she recognized this ease between the Lone Gunmen was almost as comfortable as the rapport between herself and Mulder.

"Spender?" Scully asked, having been listening to the continued conversation with one ear, despite her musings. Frohike shook his head, "That's the thing, we can't find Cancerman anywhere in these files. He has been completely erased."

Scully shifted uneasily at that and one hand fluttered down to rest on her stomach, the child inside instantly soothing her fears and concerns. "I don't like the sound of that. Have we heard from either Krycek or Marita anytime lately?" She asked with barely concealed disgust for the two informants who had disappeared when Mulder had. 

"Negative," Langly replied. "Think they are where we should start?"

"Its as good as any place," Scully agreed. She settled down in a chair Frohike had brought her while the three got to work on the computers. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked, instantly feeling drowsy. The three heads shook concurrently again and Scully didn't bother hiding the grin this time. "Well I'm just going to rest for a bit, wake me in an hour," she murmured, half asleep already. The three computer hackers exchanged worried but smiling glances with each other as they let Scully sleep the night away.

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully shifted into an uneasy sleep, aware that the Lone Gunmen were watching out for her in case she had nightmares again. For a moment, in the back of her mind which was still semi conscious, the knowledge that Mulder was not there to hold her if she awoke from a nightmare crying struck her painfully. God she missed him, she wanted him back so much, she wanted him to hold her in his strong, sheltering arms and tell her he loved her. She wanted him to kiss her and be amazed and happy about this miracle child of theirs that grew inside her.

But instead he was laying in a coma in a hospital, and she was not there. Scully's last conscious thought was to be able to see him.

And so she did.

~ ~ ~ ~

Mulder's first conscious thought was of her, and wondering when the hell he was going to wake up. He was beginning to feel like he had no control over his own body, like it was someone else lying on that hospital bed, not him. Not Fox Mulder, federal agent and brilliant psychologist, the expert profiler who had lost his sister when he was twelve years old and gone off the deep end afterwards, Fox Mulder the all around spooky guy as everyone saw him.

That's not who Mulder was anymore. No, he was just Mulder, Dana Scully's partner and best friend. Mulder, the man Dana Scully loved. Mulder, the father of her child. That was the Mulder he was inside, who he loved being.

Mulder wondered when he had started getting philosophical. 

He knew if he stayed here any longer, in this damn black mist, he would go insane. He almost smiled at the thought, he could practically hear his partner turning to him and asking, "You're going to go insane? I think you crossed that path a long time ago, Mulder."

He smiled, god he missed her.

He had started walking a little while ago, into the mist, the fog. He had walked until he couldn't anymore, it had gotten him nowhere.

He remembered something Scully had told him about while she was in the hospital after her return. She told him she had remembered water, a lake of some sort. He had been there, standing in the distance, waiting for her. Melissa had been there too, but she had stayed longer, apparently Mulder had been too skeptical to stay.

Mulder's heart had caught in his throat at the picture she had painted with her words. He remembered when he had first met Scully's sister, she had been so spiritual, so believing. So unlike his Scully. He would have believed what she was saying at the time for any other case, but not for this one, he had been too afraid for Scully.

Melissa had asked him why he was so afraid to believe, if it would help Dana. Mulder had heard his own words come out of her mouth, he had said that to Scully, in many different ways, over the course of their partnership.

Where he stood now, in a black haze, in an unholy purgatory, he wondered why he hadn't gotten at least a nice kind of oblivion, like Scully had. Why hadn't he gotten the lake and the boat?

He grinned, God probably knew he got seasick.

His musings were interrupted by a slight lightening of the mist around him. A golden tendril slipped through and Mulder felt the tension leave his shoulders.

Scully was here.

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully frowned and glanced around her, swirling black mists surrounded her, shifting gently around her, whispering at her red hair, the only color in the spot of darkness.

She wondered where she was, how she got there. Then she turned around, and saw him.

Mulder stood behind her, a small frightened smile on his face. Scully suddenly remembered another time, when she had believed he was dead years ago. He had appeared to her then, like this, to tell her that he was alive, that she had to believe in him, that she could not give up.

But he wasn't dead this time, Scully knew that...didn't she?

"Oh God," she whispered, a thousand terrified thoughts running through her mind suddenly. What if he had taken a turn for the worse after she left? What if...

Mulder's touch, his long fingers spectral on her skin. She stared down at his hand for a long moment, then up at him. It was Mulder, her Mulder, and he was here.

"How?" was all she whispered, struck by the emotion she could see in his eyes. He shook his head and reached out to touch her again, his hand hovering over her vibrant red hair. "I don't know. I'm not sure I know anything anymore. I don't know where I am, how I got here, how to get out..." he trailed off and Scully's eyes burned bright with unshed tears. His gentle hand lingered over her head, unwilling to touch her for fear she might disappear and leave him again.

Scully sensed his hesitation and heard his words impressed upon her soul, she had said words so much like those to him months ago. She could practically hear her tear filled confession from then hanging in the air, 'I don't know what to believe anymore... I don't know what the truth is, I don't know who to listen to, I don't know who to trust...'

Mulder remembered too, he remembered when he looked into her eyes, he could see his own response there. 'Scully, I was like you once. I didn't know who to trust, and I chose another path, another life, another fate, where I found my sister. The end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down. There was one thing that remained the same: you were my friend, and you told me the truth, even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant, my touchstone...'

'And you are mine...'

The memory hung between them, solid and unyielding, until Scully spoke. "Mulder," she took his hand and a look of fear passed over his face until he realized that she was still there. She squeezed his hand gently, amazed at how solid and real it was. "I was like you once. I didn't know who to trust. I was young and naive, and I had been paired up to work with a pariah, a brilliant crackpot who told me the sky was falling," A flicker of a smile flitted across his face as he gripped her other hand as well. She smiled back and the tremble in her voice would have been evident to no one but him. "Little did I know that the crackpot would be a prophet," She squeezed his hand affectionately and Mulder leaned in, closing the gap between them and resting his forehead against hers, the need for physical closeness overwhelming after all this time. He searched for words for a moment then grinned against her skin. 

"I never told you the sky was falling Scully, I always hated that story. Foxy Loxy?"

Scully chuckled softly, "Sorry, I forgot." She pulled her hands out of his and instead wrapped her slender arms around his waist, he hugged her back, placing one hand on the back of her head as she leaned it against his chest.

They stood in comfortable, long missed silence for a long time. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. The two of them could have cared less, they could have stayed together, in the others arms forever. Their mental communion was complete, whole, like the way they were when they were together. The silence was breathtaking, broken only by the sound of their two hearts beating in sync.

"I could hear you," Mulder whispered, breaking the beautiful silence with his soft confession. Scully wrinkled her forehead and shifted slightly to look up at him, his hazel eyes searching her blue ones for the truth. She had hoped as much, her the skeptic, had wanted to believe that he had heard her declaration of her love. "When?" She asked, knowing the answer.

"In the hospital, when you told me you loved me," his voice was monotone as always, but she could hear the emotion in it. "Did you mean it?" He dared to ask.

She was surprised he could even ask her that, she knew he was a tad insecure but how could he think that she didn't love him?

"I did," she whispered, reaching up to caress his face. "I still do, every word."

A look of relief, and happiness washed over his normally blank features. His eyes danced in the darkness and she smiled at him, his eyes were so full of love.

Mulder blew out a breath of relief and pulled her head to his, her lips and kissed her forehead. "I love you too, so much Scully, it hurts when you're not with me," he moved lower, kissed her cheek. "I have loved you for so long," his lips found her other cheek. "I don't want to lose you," he kissed the tip of her nose tenderly. 

Scully stared at him, her heart screamed for him to kiss her, for his lips to meet hers. "You won't lose me, never, I'm not going anywhere Mulder. I just want you to come back to me."

His lip trembled slightly, "I don't know how," he whispered. He frowned, "They told me to make a choice, between my life...and you. I think they would have given me all the answers if I had not chosen you." Scully's sharp intake of breath was expected. "You gave up the truth, all the answers we had searched so long for, to come back to me?" He nodded, mutely, not meeting her tear filled eyes. 

Scully shook her head in disbelief and she punched his chest softly, "Bastard," she whispered. Mulder hung his head and Scully chuckled despite herself. "You arrogant," her voice grew soft. "Sweet, loving bastard. I'm not worth it." 

He shook his head, "You are Scully, you see, you are my life. You are everything to me. On my list of priorities, the search for my sister used to be first, after you were taken. You became first on that list, making sure they never touched you again," he chuckled shaking his head at himself. "I may not have done so well sometimes but you were all that mattered to me, the most important thing was you. The truth came second. I told you that our last night together in Oregon, I told you it wasn't worth it."

Invisible tears slipped down her face now as she pulled him even closer. "God, I love you," she whispered. He smiled and bent to kiss away her tears. "I love you too, so much Scully..." He trailed off as he looked up into the distance, Scully could feel his body tense against her own. "But you have to go now," he whispered, his voice full of regret. Scully glanced at him curiously and then around, the mist was closing in on them. She turned back to him, her eyes wide with fear. "I don't want to go," she insisted. "I won't leave you!" she gripped him and pulled him close, he buried his face in her hair and pressed her to him for dear life. "You have to, Scully. You can't help me here. Go..." but even as he spoke, she looked up at him, she was already fading. Mulder forced a smile as he called out to her one last time, "I love you!"

Scully's face was the last thing he saw before the darkness enveloped him as well, the last thing he heard was her sweet voice echoing his own words, "I love you!"

And then, for the both of them, there was nothing but darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Scully! Scully!" Dana could hear her name being called from far away. "Mulder?" She murmured, remembering her vivid dream and his arms around her. With difficulty, she managed to pull herself out of the darkness. She blinked her eyes open, forcing herself awake. "Mulder?" She whispered again as the room struggled to come into focus. She shook her head violently, combating her grogginess and snapped awake, to find the Lone Gunmen hovering over her in concern.

"What?" She asked as they stared at her with worry. Frohike placed a restraining hand on her arm as she attempted to stand. "Do you remember what you were dreaming about?" he asked.

Scully stared at him, tempted to break his arm, until she saw genuine concern in his eyes. She softened and drew away with a frown. Dreaming? Slowly, her dream, vision of Mulder slid back into her mind and her eyes burned with sudden tears at the memory. 

"You were calling out for Mulder," Byers informed her. She nodded slowly, "I dreamt about him," she said softly, ignoring the knowing looks the three men exchanged. "He is trapped in some sort of purgatory, and he can't get out. He doesn't know how."

"It was just a dream," Frohike reassured her, wondering when the skeptic had started to believe in the significance of dreams. Scully shook her head, "It wasn't, it was so real guys. He came to me like this once before when I thought he was dead, he assured me then that he was alive, and he was." She insisted, growing frustrated again under their concerned gazes. She blew out a breath of ire and turned away from their eyes, seeing the light pouring in from a small window. They had let her sleep all night, damn it. She shook her head again, not really all that mad and nodded towards the computers. "So why did you wake me?" She asked. The three hurried back to their computer stations and Langly glanced over at her. "We found them."

~ ~ ~ ~

End part two


	3. Holding On: Part Three of Six

Delectation 3/6

Scully shifted uneasily against the worn fabric of her seat and peered out through the darkened windows in the Lone Gunmen's van at the house that lay before her. It was small, a cottage really, far away from the bright city and its troubles. 

But her troubles seemed to grow by the minute as she gazed at the small dark cottage. Scully unconsciously grasped for her necklace for a moment, wanting to feel the familiar weight against her fingertips, but it wasn't there. It was back with Mulder. 

Mulder... She was doing this for him. 

And for their child.

And for herself.

She pursed her lips and pressed the small microphone that was hidden in the collar of her shirt to her mouth. "Guys, I'm going in," she said softly. There was a slight hiss of static and Scully winced as Frohike's voice floated into her ear from the small device in her cochlea. "Alright Scully," he said, his voice masked by the ruffling of leaves as he settled into place. "We've got your back."

Scully allowed a brief flash of pain to cross her face, Mulder was usually the one on her back, the only one she wanted watching out for her. Quickly she chased the expression away, beggars couldn't be choosers and she needed to get this done. She strapped her gun to its holster in her back and hesitated before snatching Mulder's old gun and strapping it to her ankle, like he had done so many times before. As she straightened she allowed her hand to drift and rest on her stomach for a moment. She could practically feel the sense of this unborn child, created unwittingly, yet out of love. Love from two desperate people who only found happiness in the other. Quickly, Scully offered up a prayer or two for her child and her child's father. Let them live...was her only thoughts as Byers gave the okay and she slipped silently across the yard and into the house.

As she passed the living room, Scully felt a flash of annoyance pass through her. These people were criminals, Krycek had murdered her sister in an attempt to kill her. What right did they have to live in luxury and happiness when she was miserable and Mulder was lying near death?

She scowled and entered the room, Mulder's gun instantly out of the ankle holster and in hand. She remembered all the times Krycek or Marita had simply shown up, to dangle information in front of Mulder and then snatch it away. Their cruel games were too much for Scully, she decided to give the two of them a taste of their own medicine.

With a grim smile and gun clutched tightly in hand, Dana Scully sat down in the plush armchair and waited.

~ ~ ~ ~

Mulder squinted at the swirling mists one more time, in a vain attempt to spot something he had possibly missed while staring aimlessly at it.

There was nothing. Not a godamn thing to give him a clue as to how to get out of there. 

Mulder sighed in disgust and shut his eyes. Rubbing them furiously, he went through his mind all the things he had ever heard about people's near death experiences. With a grim smile he recalled a burning boxcar and added his own out of body encounter to the list. 

Faintly he remembered that there had always been something to lead these people back to the world of the living. For him when he had been dying, his life in the hands of an Anasazi medicine man and his own mind wanting to give up, two things had drawn him back to the world. His quest for the truth, and Scully. Always her, he always found a way to return to Scully. 

He opened his eyes again, allowing his vision to simply drift, not really seeing anything. He had to find a way to return to her now, she needed him more now than ever. 

His serene perception of the state that held him sharpened suddenly as the back of his mind noted something that was slowly catching up to the rest of his brain. There was a pattern in the mist, not in the way it shifted around him restlessly, in fact that just added to his misconception. No, there were faint colors in the mist, so faint he could barely see them, but they were there. He had noticed something like it when he had heard Scully's voice, the streaks had shown up in the distance as gold then, coloring the fog ever so slightly. The golden hue had been ever more evident when she had been there with him, in the spiritual state. He had never really considered it before, but now he could see other tints in the haze. Purple, blue, red, green, all he was positive represented something different in all the different aspects of his life. Finally he found it, the aureate strand that wove about all the other strands, linking them all together. Holding him literally together at times. That golden link was Scully. 

Mulder stretched out a hand, watching as some of the mist slowly gathered in his hand. This was weird, well as weird as you could get in a purgatory where you had no way out. Slowly, he brushed aside the multi-colored wisps and the gray and ebony fog, until he held the glowing golden chain in his hand. 

Fox Mulder held onto the essence of the woman he loved for so long, and he followed it out of the darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Scully," Langly's voice sounded in her ear. "A car's pulling up, be careful." Scully nodded slightly at the man, "I'm on it guys."

The clicking of the knob as the door swung silently open was the only thing that alerted Scully. She tensed immediately, both hands gripping a gun. She might not leave this house alive, she knew that, she knew that Krycek and Marita could overpower her easily if she wasn't careful. 

But Scully had been extremely careful of late. She intended to walk out of the house of her own will, and with answers.

"Krycek's coming in first, Marita's right behind him, stay on edge, we never know what they might have up their sleeves, but there is no one around except for them," Scully nodded slightly at Frohike's message, aware that he could not see her. 

A shadow hovered at the doorway and Scully cocked her gun, seeing how the figure froze as the sound pierced the stillness. 

"Don't move Krycek," she ordered softly, "Put your hands up slowly," he did as she asked, slowly flicking on the light as he moved. His eyes met hers and she raised a slow eyebrow. 

"Agent Scully," he acknowledged with a small nod and a slight smile that could have easily been a grimace. "What a pleasant surprise."

Scully leveled her gun on him, resting her arm on the chair arm and scowled, "That's bullshit, Krycek, you and I both know it," she stood idly, her stance cautious and alert. Krycek smirked and his eyes flicked slightly to something just beyond her, nobody else would have noticed it, but Scully's perception and reflexes had been finely honed after years with her partner. Swiftly she swung her other arm around and cocked the gun in her other hand. Without taking her other gun away from Krycek, Scully turned her head to glance at Marita who had been sneaking up behind her. 

Scully grinned tightly, "We're just a regular convention, aren't we?" Marita narrowed her eyes and Scully gestured with her gun that she sit on the couch next to Krycek. 

"Now," Scully began slowly. "I want some answers, and I want them now."

"What kind of answers," Marita asked, knowing full well what Scully was getting at.

Scully glowered at her at the impertinent question. "Like where I can find C. G. B Spender, Cancerman, whoever he is, let's start with that."

Krycek raised an eyebrow, matching Scully's own gesture. "Why do you want to see him?"

Scully suppressed a groan, they could be here all night if the two of them kept playing innocent. "Because," she started slowly, as if speaking to a two year old. "I believe he knows how to save my partner, and if you don't tell me, I will kill you," even as she spoke Scully wondered if she would be able to do it, to kill two people, even if it was two people that had traitored against Mulder dozens of times, one who had killed her own sister. 

She honestly did not know, but as she saw both Krycek and Marita's eyes widen slightly at her threat she knew they believed her capable. And that was all that mattered.

"I'm afraid Cancerman wouldn't be of much help to you," Marita informed her, her cool and cultured voice slid like silk against a knife. Scully switched her gaze to the blonde woman. 

"And just why is that?" She asked, her contempt hidden behind genuine curiosity. Krycek shrugged, "Because he is currently taking up residence at Arlington Cemetery," he saw the light of realization dawning in her blue eyes and added inessentially, "Six feet under."

Scully drew in a breath, taking this all in. "You killed him," it was more a statement than a question. Krycek nodded slightly, "So, whatever you want to know there are only two people left with any useful information."

Scully's eyes darkened to indigo and she bit the inside of her lip in frustration. She had been afraid something like this would happen. Well she could play this game just as well as they could. "Why is it just you two?" She asked cautiously, her eyes never straying from the two of them, she sure hoped that all this was getting through to the Lone Gunmen. "What happened to the rest of the Syndicate?" She asked, afraid that she already knew. 

"All those who I knew were all killed, torched months ago. I would have thought that you had heard about it. Cancerman and Diana," Krycek noted how Scully's jaw clenched at the name of the foul bitch with a slight mirth. "Were the only ones who escaped," Marita continued. "Diana was killed, murdered, you knew that of course. Cancerman was the only one left, we told you and Agent Mulder this. His dying wish was that we continue his work, but he was the master of lies and deceit," she exchanged a glance with Krycek. "We learned a few things from him."

Scully's curiosity peaked now, "But the two of you are not continuing his work? Why?"

"Would you believe us if we told you that we were sick of it all and just wanted to be left alone?" Krycek asked. Scully rolled her eyes inwardly, "No," she said simply. "You've seen too much, know too much to just walk away with no thought of consequence," her words sounded hollow in her own ears as she heard Mulder's voice echo uncannily similar from so long ago. 

Krycek shook his head, "You would think so, but if any syndicate members remain, major or not, they'll never know. Marita was a treasured secret, treasured by men who are now dead. I am presumed to be dead in prison right now. They would never know about us."

Scully's eyes hardened, "I could tell them," she realized aloud. She saw Krycek and Marita instinctively move for their guns, but she waved them to stop with a flick of her own gun. "Don't worry, I won't tell a soul," she gritted her teeth as she spoke the words. "I won't tell as long as you tell me how to save Mulder."

Marita frowned, "I hardly think that's a fair trade, Agent Scully."

"Sure it is, you help me cure Mulder and I don't kill you, or tell anyone else who wants to kill you where you are," she shrugged. 

"That's not a trade, that's blackmail," Krycek pointed out. Scully swung a wry gaze on the former FBI agent and raised her eyebrows. "Very good, Alex, your astute observations continue to amaze me," at her own words, Scully realized how much she had picked up from Mulder over the years. Her partner's dry humor seemed to be one of those things. 

She shrugged, "Now, are you going to cooperate or not?"

Krycek slowly nodded as Marita spoke up, "What exactly do you want from us?"

"All I want to know is how to help him, I feel so helpless," Scully stopped and swallowed hard. "It's so frustrating, you have to know how to help him."

Another exchanged glance between the two of them confirmed her suspicion. Slowly Marita stood, under Scully's intense gaze, crossed the room and pressed a panel in the wall. A slot opened, revealing a safe. Scully frowned as the slim blonde woman pressed one finger to the pad and the slot opened. They were keeping something important in there. 

Scully watched Krycek out of the corner of her eye, keeping her eyes on Marita as she pulled a locked box out of the safe. Marita unlocked the dark box and proceeded to pull a slim tube out of the empty rows inside.

Marita closed and locked the safe before turning back to Scully and Krycek. With slightly trembling fingers she handed the container to Scully, who holstered one gun, and accepted it with equal trepidation. "What is it?" She asked, glancing down at it to view the shifting golden colored liquid inside. 

"It's the same kind of cure that Mulder used on you when you were trapped in Antarctica," Scully looked up, blue eyes flashing, how the hell could they know about that?

Ignoring her gaze, Krycek continued. "The sophistication of their abductions have come a long way in the past few years. You were abducted, Scully, to be tested on, to see how far they could push the limits of humans. Of late, the abductions have been to see how humans would react to when infested with the aliens. That is why you were abducted to Antarctica several years ago. That is why Mulder and all those other abductees were abducted from Oregon two months ago,"

"But why Mulder?" Scully demanded in exasperation. "Why now, and why would they return him but not any of the others?" Her fingers tensed unconsciously around the cold metal of the gun. 

"Because Mulder is important, too important to waste to these mindless experiments. They knew that, so they returned him, that's as much as I have figured out anyway," Marita told her, she could feel Krycek tense slightly at the slight lie beside her. "But he was obviously returned too soon, the alien was not completely out of his system yet. That," she nodded towards the tube clenched in Scully's palm, "Is the only cure."

Scully held the clear tube up to the light to view the golden liquid inside. "Any idea how it works?" She queried. Marita frowned, "I was never completely clear on that, the earlier form of this vaccine had to be administered within ninety-six hours of infestation," Scully frowned, Mulder had told her about that after their fiasco in Antarctica. 

"This is a more advanced form of the same kind of vaccine used on you, Agent Scully, except it can be administered within the space of one year. It's more powerful than the last vaccine." She shrugged her slender shoulders. "As for how it works? All I know is that it spawns the regenerative cells inside the body to act faster and heal more quickly,"

Scully could feel her blood run cold at her words. Instinctively her hand dropped to her stomach, all thoughts fading to the back of her mind as she realized that her womb had been slowly rebuilding itself over the past two years. This was a simple matter of science, she was no longer barren, therefore she had become pregnant the good old fashioned way. By her partner. 

Shaking her head slightly, Scully held the tube firmly in one hand, her gun in the other. She met the gazes of Marita and Krycek in relief. For the past two months she had been going out of her mind trying to figure out how she had gotten pregnant, now she knew. 

"Thank you," she whispered honestly. Without another glance, Scully turned and strode swiftly out of the door.

"Guys," Scully spoke into her small microphone. "I hope you got all that, I need to get to the hospital as soon as possible."

"All right Scully," came the low voice of Byers. "We're in the van, hurry up."

When she was gone, Krycek turned to Marita, "Did we do the right thing?"

Without turning to meet his eyes, Marita nodded firmly. "You're the one who said that they deserve a chance for happiness, if we had kept the cure then eventually they would have found us. We have hurt the two of them too much. This may be the one chance we have to make up for that."

Krycek nodded, "You're right, but can we trust Scully to keep her end, I killed her sister, she and Mulder both despise me. How do we know she won't change her mind? Or Mulder will come after us without telling her?"

Marita shrugged, "We don't, but at least they aren't the syndicate."

"No," Krycek said quietly, "But in many ways, the two of them combined are so much worse."

Marita turned to meet his eyes with her cool gaze, "Then we move out in the morning."

The only agreement she got from his end was a slight nod, and a silent understanding.

In less than a week, Marita Covarrubias and Alex Krycek would be long gone.

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully paced the Lone Gunmen headquarters anxiously as the three men inspected the contents of the tube. "You're using only a few drops, right guys? I can't waste any of that stuff," she called to them. 

A yell of affirmation came from the back room. Scully paced for a few more moments until she couldn't stand it anymore. She headed into the back room where the three men sat, analyzing the serum. "Do you have anything?" She asked. 

Byers looked up to meet her eyes with a small smile, all three Lone Gunmen were suddenly reminded of a time nearly three years ago when Mulder had come to them, demanding the contents of a similiar tube be analyzed. 

"Almost done, it doesn't appear to be harmful in any way, they may have been telling the truth Scully, this serum is virtually identical to what was found in your system after you and Mulder returned to Antarctica. I think this just may be the thing to save him."

Scully couldn't hide a triumphant smile. "Then you three won't mind if I go to see him, you'll call me if discover anything right?"

"We'll call you," Frohike promised. "Go take care of Mulder."

Scully smiled a bit at them and picked up the tube, feeling the coolness of the container against her fingertips. "Thanks guys," she called as she closed the door behind her.

As she slid in her car, Scully secured the tube in her jacket pocket, making sure it was protected. She started the car after using the necessary precautions, she wasn't sure that the guys would let her go if she didn't, and made her way to the DC hospital her partner had been transferred to a few days earlier.

She flipped on the radio, desperate for something to distract her. The smooth vocals slid out of the speakers to fill the car and her heart. That was one thing about being in love, she had realized a long time ago. All the sad love songs seemed to be written just for you.

'--My love, you know that you're my best friend, you know that I'd do anything for you...'

Scully bit her lip at the words. They reached out to her from the depths of her radio, to strum at the chords of her soul. Her heart filled with thoughts of Mulder, her best friend, her partner, and something they had discovered not so long ago, something so much more.

Something beautiful.

And Scully realized how true the words were to her. Too true, it was almost their relationship wrapped up into five minutes of music.

But what beautiful music it was.

'--Let nothing come between us, my love for you is strong and true. Am I in heaven here, or am I in hell? Or am I . . . at the crossroads I am standing.'

Scully felt tears well up in her eyes, damn hormones, she chastised herself, well aware that it was not just hormones that caused her sorrow. The events of the past few days seemed to be catching up with her suddenly. She pushed her foot on the pedal, determined to get to the hospital as soon as she could. 

She barely noticed as it started to rain. 

Or the sign that said 'bridge slippery when wet, stay below 60 mph.'

Or her speedometer that currently read 80...

The last thing she heard before losing control of the car was the screeching of tires, and wrapped around it all, the fluid voice of the songstress on her radio. 

'Hold on, hold on to yourself...for this is gonna hurt like hell...'

Then, for Dana Scully, there was nothing but darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~

end part three

song 'hold on' is by sarah mclachlan. And you guessed it, that doesn't belong to me either.


	4. Come Back To Me: Part Four of Six

Delectation 4/6

Scully awoke with a pounding headache. Her first coherent thought was to kill the little men inside her brain who were drumming on her skull. 

The next was, what the hell happened?

Without even opening her eyes, she could tell she was in a hospital. The tang of the cleaning products constantly used, along with the discernible stench of sickness proved her suspicions.

She pulled her eyelids apart, forcing her eyes to focus. The first thing she saw was the bare white of the hospital room ceiling. She lay, staring at the blank awning for a long time, struggling to gather her thoughts which seemed to be scattered all over her brain. 

She remembered a sense of urgency.

And a haunting song...

This is gonna hurt like hell... 

Scully groaned, it did hurt like hell... the vague impression that something was terribly wrong rooted itself deep into her psyche. Her head ached, her shoulder, for some reason, was killing her. But it was her stomach that bothered her the most...

With a flash of recollection, she sat up, clutching her stomach. The baby! How could she have forgotten? And Mulder... Oh God...

"Oh God..." Scully whispered, the susurration caught deep in her throat, coming out as a strangled sob. "Oh please God, no..." she squeezed her eyes shut and glanced quickly under her sheets.

There was no blood. 

A wave of relief washed over Scully until the doctor in her whispered that the lack of menstrual fluid didn't mean a thing. The baby could have still died inside of her.

She shut her eyes again and steepled her fingers against her forehead. She issued a silent prayer, a plea up to God to keep her baby alive. It wouldn't be fair to take away this child now. Scully had already suffered too much. If this child inside of her died...she wasn't sure she would be able to endure. 

Somebody cleared his throat from across the room, Scully looked up with dull eyes to see Skinner standing in the doorway. Scully felt an odd disappointment wash over her as she realized that it was not Mulder standing there. Of course, Mulder wouldn't be so polite about it, he would come over the minute he saw her face and wrapped her into one of his loving embraces and comfort her.

"Sir," Scully cleared her own throat as not to reveal the tears that choked her. "What have you heard?" she gnawed slightly on the inside of her lip, not really wanting to hear the answer. 

As Skinner approached, she could see tears burning his eyes. Oh God no... Scully thought to herself again. The only time she had seen Walter Skinner cry had been two months ago when he had come into a hospital room similar to the one she was in now, to tell her that her partner, the man she loved, was gone. 

There had been a look of utter failure and grief in his eyes then, the same look Scully was seeing now. Scully felt the ball of dread settle into her gut. 

"When you came in, I was here, one of the doctor's had seen me with you and got me. I told them that you were a few months pregnant," the older man stopped, his voice catching with the words. Scully drew in a breath as her features contorted in grief. 

"They did a sonogram, the baby's heart stopped..." Scully bowed her head into her hands. She stared at her own pale skin, it was her fault. All her fault, she realized, if she hadn't been going so fast, if she had let one of the other guys drive her. If, if, if, the happenstance haunted her, plagued her thoughts and conscience. 

She raised her head again, silent tears incandescent in her wide eyes, but refusing to let them spill. It was her fault, the thought and guilt plagued her. 

Her fault, her fault, her fault. She couldn't even save her own unborn child...but she could at least save her child's father. 

"Where are my clothes?" She asked softly, the surprise registered on Skinner's face. 

"Agent Scully, you can't go anywhere..."

"Like hell I can't!" She growled at him. "I have to see Mulder, I have to save him at the very least," in the back of her mind, Scully realized she was probably making very little sense to her boss. In defiance, she swung her legs over the side of the stiff bed. Her bare feet met the cold floor and she set about removing the IV's stuck in her arms, with the diligence of a doctor. 

Skinner watched silently, aware that once Dana Scully got her mind set on something, nothing was going to stop her. He had learned that years ago. 

Meanwhile tears burned Scully's eyes, blurring her vision as she removed the tubes from her already weakened body. She spotted her jacket on the other side of the room, resting on a chair. She pushed herself up, out of bed, refusing Skinner's offered hand.

She snatched her jacket with unsteady fingers. All the while two words repeated like a maddening mantra in her brain. 

My fault, my fault, my fault...

She fumbled with the jacket until she found the small inside pocket that concealed the tube with the cure for her partner. With one more silent plea to God, she reached inside the pocket, praying that the tube had stayed intact. 

Her fingers closed around something small and cold...

And withdrew a solid plastic tube... with the serum all inside.

Scully closed her eyes in relief and clutched the container firmly. She was aware of Skinner's eyes boring into her back, puzzled by her odd behavior. Without turning around to meet his eyes she spoke softly, "I want to be moved to Mulder's room. I have to be near him...Please, sir?"

Skinner nodded, aware she could not see it. "I'll get on it," he left the room silently, leaving Scully clutching the vial to her chest with depressed hope. 

She set the tube down on the small table next to her and grabbed her jeans, pulling them on underneath the revealing medical gown. She pulled her tank top on next, it was dark red in color and Scully winced at how much it suddenly reminded her of blood. The blood of her unborn child...

Scully gasped slightly and collapsed into the chair, the impact of what had happened hitting her like a brick wall. "Oh God, why?" the plea went unheard as far as she could tell. Scully bent over in agony at the piercing pain that shot up her body from the pressure on a tender stomach and bruised ribs. 

With a silent, shuddering sob, she hunched over, breathing hard. The weight of her injuries and guilt pounded at her, tearing her apart. The physical pain combined with her mental anguish was almost too much for her, she just wanted it all to stop. Scully bit down on her lip hard to keep the tears from spilling over. This wasn't like her, she was strong, she could survive. The time for grieving would be later, right now she had a obligation to her partner.

When the pain had passed, she sat up again, grasping the tube of serum off the table blindly. She resolved to at least save him, she had heard Krycek and Marita Covarrubias, Mulder was important. Much more important than her. He needed to be saved. 

Scully opened her door cautiously, wincing as every movement aggravated a pre-existing bruise or creating a new one. She shuffled down the hall, she discovered that Mulder's room was only a few doors down. 

His room was dim, the overhead lights were off, but the area surrounding his bed was lit up with a pale yellow light. Scully bit her lip, how was she going to tell him? Ever since Emily, she had known he had wanted children, he loved children, and he was so good with them. 

She knew that when he had discovered that she was barren he had resolved himself to a childless fate, unless their children were to be adopted. 

Scully wondered how she was supposed to tell him that she had carried their child inside of her for a few short months, and then lost her.

He already knew she was pregnant, she knew he had heard her somehow. He had talked to her in that dream, told her that he loved her, she knew that hadn't been some grief induced hallucination. He had come to her, he had known about the child, but hadn't mentioned it. 

But she could tell that he knew, by the light in his eyes, he had known.

How was she going to tell him now that their baby had lost it's life before it had even gained one?

She bit her lip and resolved her determination, Mulder would still love her, she knew that know. But would he be able to forgive her? 

Shaking away dark thoughts, Scully opened a drawer in the table beside her partner's bed and pulled out a syringe. She inserted the needle tip into the tube and slowly withdrew the golden serum into the syringe, leaving only a few drops left in the tube, and shot a glance at her partner. His face was thin, he had several new lines around his eyes. Lines unfamiliar to the ones she had memorized after seven years of scrutiny. Slowly she sat down in the chair next to him, biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain as her injured parts complained to her. 

She set the needle down on the table and reached out to stroke his forehead, she smiled at the sight of her cross still around his neck. The doctors and nurses must think he was a religous man if they were letting him wear it, they were far from the truth. 

Scully ran her fingers over his skin, her feather light touch instantly easing the lines on his impassive face. Scully moved her hand from his head to his hand, glancing down at it she noticed how small her own pale hand was in his pale large one. His fingers were slack in her grip, those fingers, used to soothe her pain and distress, he was the only one who could calm her with just a touch. They had caressed her face, her body, and had fired a gun to kill those who would threaten her, or others.

She kissed his fingers lightly and squeezed his hand, offering strength she was not sure she had. And love. She retrieved the syringe from its resting spot on the table and pulled his hospital gown down to reveal his shoulder so she could prep it. Slowly, she pushed the alcohol and swabs aside to ease the needle into his frangible skin. 

She emptied all but a few drops into his system, she didn't want to give him too much, even the most harmless of medicines could be lethal in large amounts. Scully pushed the remnants of the serum out of the syringe and back into the tube, that went safely into her inside pocket. 

Then she sat back, gripping his hand, and waited.

~ ~ ~ ~

Mulder squinted in the darkness, holding on firmly to the golden cord that he believed was his way out of there. There was something wrong, he could feel it. 

He could see a silver cord stretching out of him, he had noticed that some time earlier. He figured it was his own essence, it combined with the golden cord of Scully where somewhere down the line, creating a sort of copper strand that trailed off into the distance.

He had assumed some time earlier that the copper strand must be their child, still growing inside of Scully, the vibrant copper link had beckoned him, pulled him forward. 

But now it was fading rapidly. 

Mulder glanced anxiously at Scully's own then, the vibrant gold had dimmed just a bit, but it was still there, still shining. 

What was going on? Could she have lost the child? 

Fearful now, Mulder grabbed the three cords, connecting the child to him and Scully and pressed them together, wondering if he could bring the child back this way. Wondering if this was even happening at all. He melded the three strands, shaping them together with his hands, praying that this would work. 

"Hold on, baby," he whispered desperately. "Please, hold on."

He held on to the three twining strands and struggled out of the darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully watched anxiously as the color flooded back into her partner's cheeks. His breaths were still shallow, but at least he could breathe on his own. She enveloped his hand with her own two and bit her lip. "Come on Mulder, come back to me..."

~ ~ ~ ~

Mulder shook his head free of the mist clinging to him, the rest of the darkness had faded away from him now, all the colors were gone, all that remained was the three strands he clung to. 

There was a light ahead, he could see it now, a brilliant golden glow that warmed his cold soul and lifted his faltering spirits. He was so close, only a little farther now... 

Mulder stepped through into the light, and was sent drifting through a sea of memories. 

'My name is Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you...' that had been so long ago, they had come so far from then.

'Mr. Mulder, they've been here for a long, long time...' a cryptic message he had never forgotten, from the only contact he had ever really been able to trust.

'Mulder, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you...' his heart had nearly stopped at her words, Scully always had that affect on him.

'I had the strength of your beliefs...' when she had just woken up from a coma so similar to the one he had been in for the past few days. She had heard him then, he had pierced through the darkness around her like she had done for him.

'I know the truth, now what I want are the answers...' his heart contracted at that memory. The two of them had been in the empty room, formerly occupied by Melissa Scully, who had died. Killed by a bullet meant for her sister. That night had been the first time Scully had understood just what it had been like for Mulder, losing a sister and not being able to do a thing to help.

'Bambi? Her name is BAMBI?!?!' if Mulder had been able to smile, he probably would have started laughing at the memory. Scully had been so jealous, he, of course, hadn't realized it until years later. 

'Mulder, put the gun down, you're stronger than this...' that bastard Modell, he could still hear the pain in Scully's voice as she had watched him point the gun at her.

'Even if I knew... Mulder, I wouldn't change a day....well, except maybe for that flukeman thing...' he could hear her voice sounding just as it had all those years ago. She would have stayed with him no matter what, in the years after that, Mulder would wonder if she wanted her old life back, if she ever regretted everything, but he would always remember that conversation, and the honesty in her words.

'The birds the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder ...' a flash of undetermined emotion washed over Mulder as he remembered that particular case. The one where he had burst through the door of his partner's apartment after being locked up for days, only to find her about to kiss Eddie Van Blundht. Mulder frowned inwardly, okay, that wasn't very true, she had thought she was about to kiss him, but that wasn't the point...

'I have cancer...' three little words changed both of their lives forever. He remembered the aching emptiness he had felt without her. And when he had gone to the hospital to see her, and found her diary... 

'If not for which I could never be so strong now, as I cross to face you, and look at you incomplete, hoping that you would be able to forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you...' how could she think he wouldn't forgive her? They had stood on a precipice in that hospital, teetering on an edge they would see again. He had all but dared her to jump then, he had been ready to. 

It would be years before either of them jumped. 

'Do you believe in miracles?' Miracles, he hadn't believed until Scully's cancer had gone into remission. That was the only time he had dared to believe. Believe like she did. 

'There's talk of reassignment... for both of us...' standing amongst the blackened ruins of their work, their lives. Scully had reached out to him, she had been the only one who had understood. She had been the only one who had been able to comfort him.

'I had you, oh yeah, I had you big time...' he could practically hear the grin in her voice. It had been the first time either of them had smiled in a long time, and the last time they would smile for even longer. 

And then he heard his own words, haunting him. 

'But you've saved me. As difficult and frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a a hundred... a thousand times over! You kept me honest. You made me a whole person. I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I want to do this alone. I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win.' He had come so close to telling her then, to breaking down and confessing that he loved her. That he couldn't live without her. And he probably would have, he would have kissed her and collapse in her arms and tell her everything. 

If not for that damn bee. 

Godamn bee...

He was interrupted from his bee cursings by more words, wisps of conversations long ago swept and swirled around him, and through him. 

'Scully... I love you...' she hadn't believed him then, he could only hope that she did now. 

'The end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down, one thing remained the same. You were my friend, and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant. My touchstone.'

'And you are mine...'

He remembered that day with vivid clarity, he had awoken from a coma to the sound of Scully's voice, and her tears dripping down onto his face. He had wanted so badly to kiss her tears away, make whatever was hurting her stop.

'You would die for Mulder, but you won't allow yourself to love him...' Mulder did a double take at that particular memory. This wasn't his memory, this was something Cancerman had said to Scully, something she had never told him about.... 

So what the hell was Scully's memory doing in his mind? Mulder found himself drifting past it, but the words stuck in his mind.

'Our choices would then lead to this very moment. One wrong turn and we wouldn't be sitting here together...Well that says a lot, it says a lot, a lot, a lot...'

It had said a lot, and it had eventually led to their first night together, the first night they had made love, and the last. It was times like that that Mulder thanked god for a photographic memory.

The next memories were the most recent, sentences and conversations eventually running together in his mind.

'Oregon, seven years ago... Vertigo or something, I just started to get chills... It's not worth it, Scully ... watching you, holding that baby, knowing everything that has been taken away from you, a chance for motherhood, and your health, and that baby... It's the personal costs that are too high... There is so much you should be doing with your life, so much more than this, there has to be an end, Scully... You're not going back out there, they're taking abductees, you're an abductee.. I'm not going to risk losing you.' If only he had known...

'I will find him, I have to...' that was his Scully. Once again, refusing to give up.

'I'm pregnant...' the image of three interwoven strands appeared in Mulder's mind. Gold, precious gold, silver and copper. And the copper had been fading fast...

'I love you, are you hearing me? I love you!'

'Mulder is important, too important to waste to these mindless experiments ... hold on, hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell... a sonogram... heart stopped... my fault... my fault... how am I going to tell him?... Come back to me... I need you... '

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully watched him breathe, in and out, the motion was lulling her to sleep. She wished she could sleep, she wasn't sure when the last time she had been able to sleep through the night was. 

She was disturbed from her musings by a fluttering of Mulder's eyelids. Scully swallowed hard and leaned forward to watch him.

"Mulder?" her voice was a whisper, a barely detectable hiss of air across his cheek. "Mulder, please come back to me, I... I need you..."

There was no immediate reaction this time, no blip on the heart monitors or an increase in breathing. Instead there was a barely discernible returning squeeze on her fingers. 

She swung her gaze from his fluttering eyelids to their joined hands, he was still trying to comfort her, even lying there, barely conscious, Fox Mulder tried to ease the torment that he somehow felt in her. 

"Mulder?" her voice was quiet, he strained, struggled through the darkness to her warming glow.

At her tortured plea, he opened his eyes.

For a moment, he was back in the ship, unsure of where he was, or why he was there. Then slowly his memory returned to him... and her memories as well... 

'Mulder is important, too important to waste to these mindless experiments ... hold on, hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell... a sonogram... heart stopped... my fault... my fault... how am I going to tell him?... Come back to me... I need you... '

He stared at his partner, a slow light dawning in his hazel-green eyes. He was out of the darkness, he was free. Slowly, he squeezed her hand, seeing tears of relief spring to her eyes. He opened his mouth once in an attempt to talk, when nothing came out he closed it, then tried again.

"Hey Scully," he surveyed her disheveled state and tried to smile weakly. "You look like hell,"

Her attempts to hide the huge grin that spread across her face failed, and she threw herself onto him, clinging for dear life. "Mulder, don't you ever do that to me again! Ever!" She buried her face in his chest, feeling his low chuckle vibrate in his chest before escaping his throat. She shook her head and nuzzled against him, shedding quiet tears of relief that quickly turned to shuddering sobs of despair. 

Mulder's hand, stroking her hair, slowed to a stop as one hand lifted her face up gently. He wiped away the salty tracks that ran down her cheeks and met her eyes. "What's wrong?" the tremble in his voice was evident, as if he was afraid to hear what she was going to say. 

"You heard me, didn't you?" she asked, changing the subject deftly away from the reason she was crying. He nodded slowly, cupping her face with his hand. 

"I heard you say you loved me, then you came to me, you said it again. That's twice while I was in one coma, Scully, you can't get out of it now."

She forced a tiny smile and shook her head. "I wasn't intending to try. I do love you, but..."

"The baby?" he asked quietly, trying to keep his voice neutral, he could see that she needed him here, she needed his quiet strength, and love. Her blue eyes shimmered with tears and she nodded, too overcome to speak. 

Mulder nodded slowly, closing his eyes and swallowing a strangled sob. "I was afraid of this."

"How did you know?"

He turned his eyes up to hers slowly, reluctant to reveal what he had seen until he had attempted to figure it out on his own. But this was Scully, there was no longer, 'two' where they were concerned. No, they had long ago become one. 

"There were these odd strands of colors... You were gold, I was silver and our strands merged together at one point, and kind of split off. Our baby," he frowned, suddenly aware of how ridiculous it sounded. But it was the truth. Scully nodded slowly, her brow furrowed as she took this in. 

"But suddenly it started to fade. I got so scared, I tried to hold on to it, tried to shape them back together, but there was this golden light, and somewhere along the way, I think I lost my grip..." he scrubbed furiously at his eyes which threatened to spill over with tears.

"I'm so sorry Scully, I couldn't hold on to her, I tried, I tried so hard..." he met her gaze as she sniffled slightly and shook her head. 

"It's not your fault, Mulder, it's mine. I got in a car accident in the rush to get over here. I didn't notice that it was raining and... the baby's heart stopped when I got here... Skinner told me..." her features contorted into a grimace of sorrow.   
Mulder took her hand silently, she had been rushing to him, they could place blame all they wanted, it wouldn't bring their child back.

"It's not your fault, not your fault," he brought her slender hand to his lips and kissed it gently. 

"It's just not fair, what harm did an innocent, unborn child do? Why would God take away our child, she was only two months old, I didn't even get to carry her for all that long..." she trailed off in a whisper before she could start crying again.

Mulder leaned his forehead against hers, "I know, it's not fair, I am so sorry... We could try again, I know it's not the same, I know that it never will be, but I am always here for you," he kissed her cheek gently. "I love you Scully."

Mulder folded his arms around her and stroked her hair softly, offering support by just being there. The impact of his words slowly sank into her mind. He wanted children just as much as she did. 

"I love you," she whispered back, her arms tightening around him. "Thank you for coming back to me."

"Anything... for you... my Scully... my love.. my life..." he trailed off, exhausted from the drugs still being pumped into his system. And for a long time, Scully just clung to him, thankful that she at least had the man she loved back.

~ ~ ~ ~

end part four


	5. Miracles: Part Five of Six

Delectation 5/6 

"When did he wake up?" Walter Skinner asked the nurse in charge of Mulder. She glanced back into the room, a bed had been put in the room for Scully, naturally she had pushed the two beds together so she could be closer to her partner while they slept. Currently the two partners were both sleeping, hands clasped across the small gap between their beds.

"A few hours ago, she called us once he had gone back to sleep," the nurse shot a knowing glance into the hospital room and smiled, her dark eyes twinkling. "She refused to leave him, insisted that if we wouldn't let her stay in the same bed we could at least let her stay in the room."

Skinner smiled faintly, relieved that the staff had indulged Scully in her request. He knew that she was very distressed right now, and when she was like this only Mulder could reach her.

"How are they doing?" he asked softly. 

"He appears fine, we still can't figure out exactly how he woke up or why he was in a coma in the first place, but these things happen. She... she hides it well, but she is still very upset," the nurse bit her lip, she had taken care of Scully when she had first come in. She knew about the miscarriage. 

Skinner nodded in understanding. "You'll call me if anything changes?" The nurse nodded her assent and headed down the hall. 

Skinner stared in at his two best agents for a long moment, then turned and walked down the hall.

Inside the room, Fox Mulder stirred and opened his eyes. His partner was the first thing he saw, lying on another bed across from him, clutching his hand in a tight grip.

He smiled a bit at the sight. She was so beautiful, even now. A sharp pain in his heart reminded him of the darkness looming over their happiness. That child, that baby that had grown within her for only a few short months, it had already been so cherished. So loved, so wanted. 

Just another thing taken away from the two of them, but they couldn't blame this on any shadowy figures or government conspiracies. 

Well, they could if they really tried... but they had stopped placing blame, or at least they said they had stopped.

The pain in his heart as he gazed at the woman he loved grew, not so long ago they had lain in a tight embrace in a bed in a motel room in Oregon and he had told her that she needed to do more with her life, she needed to go have a life while she could.

Not so shortly after that she had discovered that she was pregnant. Her own joy at the discovery had been dampened by the fact that he was gone. 

Now he had returned, and the baby had been taken from her.

Mulder blew out a breath of frustration, they could never be completely happy could they? Something always came along to wreck it for them. 

He leaned across the space between their beds to kiss her gently on the forehead, "We'll get another chance, Scully, I promise..." he stroked her face lovingly, pushing aside the crimson strands that were scattered about her pallid skin. He noticed faint rays of light slanting in through the window. Dawn was approaching. 

Golden - red streaks of light streamed through, warming his heart a bit as they lit Scully's delicate features with a radiance he had seen only a few times before. The aurora of the early morning inflamed her already red hair, making her locks appear as a crimson halo about her face, a stark contrast with her pale face and white sheets. He wondered when the last time she had slept was, slept and been rested anyway, years of insomnia had defined that for him. 

But for the moment, her face was peaceful, the lines of concern and worry had been eased away as she slept, comforted by his nearness and the knowledge that he was all right. 

He wondered how long this peace would last, how long would it be until she woke up and saw him, and remembered?

He would not have been surprised to learn that Scully had been sitting at his side just a few mornings earlier, studying him in the early dawn, worrying about him. The roles had been reversed yet again. Mulder frowned suddenly as a thought occured to him, frantically he felt at his neck, to his relief the necklace was still there. A dark flash of something occured to him, grasping this necklace as he jumped over the edge of an abyss...something about a portal...and a choice...

The details were sketchy at best...but he remembered seeing her there, in that portal. That was how he had gotten out...

"Fox?" A soft, familiar voice from the doorway interrupted his musings. He looked up, his gaze drawn from the younger Scully woman to the older one in the doorway.

"Mrs. Scully," his voice was low, the older woman noted, husky from unshed tears. He was being strong for her daughter, she observed with a sad amusement, he had just woken from a coma, and here he was trying to remain strong for Dana. The golden glint at his neck made her draw in a breath, Dana never gave away her necklace willingly, Mrs. Scully knew that. The last time she had seen her daughter, she had wondered where the cross had gone. Now it all clicked into place. 

"Mrs. Scully, I'm sorry..." he choked on his words and she frowned, entering the room. 

"For what, Fox?" She asked, sitting down in a chair next to his bed. Mulder shook his head, "She should have called you earlier. You must not have heard, she..." he gazed down at Dana tenderly and swallowed hard. "She lost the baby..."

Tears pricked at Mrs. Scully's eyes, so that explained it. That explained why Dana had sounded so upset on the phone when she had called a little while ago. She nodded slowly, cursing silently. Why did her daughter have to go through so much? She had never done anything wrong, it wasn't fair. 

"I see," Margaret whispered. Mulder nodded, his dark hair falling across his eyes in an adorably boyish tendency. Mrs. Scully took his hand, "How are you?" she asked quietly.

Mulder's eyes threatened to fill with tears, he was grateful the Scully women had always liked him. His own mother was gone, and no one but Scully would have been able to see how upset he was, but Scully's mother seemed to have picked up on it. 

"It's not fair," he whispered. "This child was a miracle, she was barren for so long and we were only together once," Margaret's eyebrow rose at this, she could have sworn her daughter and Fox Mulder had been involved for years. This was new.

"Scully wanted children so much, and when I heard she was pregnant... I was so happy, she could have had a normal life for once... we could have..." Margaret's other eyebrow rose, hadn't he been in a coma up until she had lost the baby? How could he have known....

"And now," he shook his head, it was futile to try to explain how it felt to lose a child to Mrs. Scully, she had lost Melissa, and had nearly lost Dana.

"I understand, it's the most aching, acute pain one could ever experience," Margaret said softly, as if she had read his thoughts. "Losing a child is never easy, but you two can survive, you're strong, you have each other."

Mulder nodded slowly, the pain was all too fresh and abrupt. He turned his eyes back to Scully, caressing her face with such love. Mrs. Scully watched this man who loved her daughter stroke her face in with a lover's touch. They were always good together, she could barely believe that they had only recently become lovers before his abduction. 

"She needs you, Fox, now more than ever, and you need her, take good care of each other." Mulder heeded her words silently. His gaze on Dana was intent and concerned. Margaret stood up and rested a comforting hand on his shoulder for a moment, "I'm going to talk to the doctors, see when I can get the two of you out of here," there was a note of intrigue in her voice as well as a small smile. She knew how much the two of them hated hospitals. And staying here longer would just remind Scully more of what she had lost. 

Mulder shot her a grateful look and smiled back, "Thanks," he said softly as Mrs. Scully winked and headed out the door, leaving the two of them alone again.

The spreading daylight broadened across the two of them and Scully stirred for the first time. There was a familiar churning in her stomach that she could not ignore. She opened her eyes and stirred restlessly under Mulder's prying gaze.

"Mulder," she said between gasps. "I don't feel so well..." his eyes widened and he grabbed the bedpan, just in time for her to vomit into it. 

When she was done, she leaned back, pale and frightened. Sweat beaded on her brow and Mulder eyed her with concern. She covered her face with her hands and allowed the imminent chills to tremble through her body. 

"Why is this happening to me?" She asked him through chattering teeth, her blue eyed gaze swinging to meet his concerned hazel eyes. "Mulder, I'm scared..."

Mulder bit his lip and pulled her close across the two beds, "I know Scully, but it's going to be fine, I won't let anything happen to you," he fumbled at his neck and pulled off her cross, sliding it around her neck and clasping it. The cross settled into the hollow of her throat as it had never been gone and she managed a small smile through her waves of trepidation. "Look at that," he murmurred, rubbing her back and whispering in a soothing tone. "It always finds it's way back to you..." the moment was not lost on Scully as their eyes locked and the two spoke so much without opening their mouths again. The cross was another constant on this fickle line they walked together. Whatever was going on scared Scully more than Mulder had seen before. She couldn't stop shivering in his arms... 

As if she could read his mind, which she probably could he supposed, her quakes subsided and relaxed into his arms.

Mulder held her for a long time, the fading image of three colored strands, inextricably woven together and held onto for dear life, fresh in the back of his mind....

~ ~ ~ ~

The next few days passed with agonizing slowness for the two agents. They were both released from the hospital the next day due to some string pulling by Skinner.

Now the two of them stood outside the door of Scully's apartment, hesitant as to where they should go from there. 

Mulder grasped her hand firmly and brought her hands to his mouth, caressing her skin lightly with his lips. "I suppose I should get back to my apartment," he managed to crack a smile. "See if my fish managed to survive without me for two months..." he trailed off, not moving to where he was rooted by her door. He didn't want to go, he didn't want to leave her now, not ever. 

Scully raised shimmering blue eyes to meet his hazel ones, not a fleck of green could be seen. There was a calm emptiness there that frightened her. A kind of hollow despair that she had only seen in him a few times before.

When he had arrived at the hospital, afraid that he would find her dead so soon after she had discovered the cancer. This quiet desperation had been in his eyes then, replaced only by hope when she had told him she was coming back to work, coming back to him.

And again, in a basement office, the two of them had stood amidst the blackened ruins of their work. Mulder's eyes had been so empty then, his entire expression so void of any emotion, even to her. He had retreated into himself and wouldn't let anyone in, he had refused to feel it, to accept the fact that the blackened wreckage around them was what he had spent many years of his life on. She had pulled the emotion out of him then, had cautiously pulled him to her and embraced him, offering as much comfort as she could. 

And then when he had discovered his mother dead, without telling him her final message, the rarefaction had again taken shape. It had only gone away to be replaced with another sort of peace, an uneasy acceptance of his sister's fate. 

And now, as he weighed the implications of their child's death, she could feel him slowly retreating from her, quietly withdrawing to get away from the pain. She knew that if she let him walk away, he would carry that maddening emptiness inside him until finally he snapped. 

She wouldn't let him do it, not this time.

Mulder was again amazed at the strength he could see in his partner. Oblivious to her speculations, he could tell that all she wanted to do was throw herself in his arms and cry. But she wouldn't let herself, she held onto those walls that surrounded her heart for dear life, determined that without them she would collapse into his arms and stay there forever. 

So that is why he was expecting her to release his hand, let him walk away, however much she wanted him to stay. 

So he was surprised when she grasped his other hand and leaned her head against his chest with one quiet, simple request. "Don't leave me Mulder, please?"

The concealed emotion in her voice made him want to weep. She would let him go if he wanted to go, but they both knew he would stay. 

He moved his hands from hers to around her waist, pulling her close to him. She lifted her head and he leaned his brow down to hers, skin meeting skin. Their position suddenly struck him as familiar, and he remembered suddenly a day in a similiar hallway outside of his apartment, virtually in the same spot, where they had stood like this. A day over two years ago, where they had come so close...

Slowly he reached behind her and opened her door, "I'll stay forever if you need me to, Scully, don't doubt that." 

She nodded mutely and followed him inside. He could see the strain of the past few days, more likely the past few months he had been gone. Hell, the strain of years of being his partner was evident in the weariness of her small frame. 

Of all the pain she had endured, this topped it all. She had already lost one daughter she had never even known existed until it was too late. Now she had lost their child, a real flesh and blood child, created out of love. 

The guilt and the grief tore at her heart, she followed Mulder numbly to her bedroom. "You have to sleep Scully, are you listening to me?" he frowned and caught her by the shoulder. "Scully, look at me." She forced her eyes up to meet his. Those swirling hazel depths she had lost herself in time and again. The pain and grief she saw there mirrored her own eyes, as well a deep fear and concern for her. 

"I'm fi--"

"Fine?" he asked, cutting her off. "Scully you are not fine, we both know it. Now come on, you are going to sleep, when was the last time you really slept?" She smiled distantly at his worrying, he sounded like her. 

"Two months ago," she replied honestly to the question he hadn't really expected an answer for. He glanced at her, furrowing his eyebrows. "In Oregon, in a little motel room," she could see the realization appear in his deep hazel eyes. He nodded slightly and smiled, "Well then I will stay with you," he whispered. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned to her bedroom door. 

And stopped short at the sight of her guest bedroom door standing slightly ajar. Mulder followed her gaze and felt his heart stop beating for a moment. Scully tensed visibly under his hand and she stood, rooted to the spot. 

Slowly she extended a hand and pushed the door open, Mulder stood by, wanting to make her look away, to make the pain stop. But he knew he had to let her come to peace with it. 

Inside was sparsely, but lovingly decorated with baby furniture. The guest bed that Mulder himself had occupied more than once, was pushed to one corner. A cradle stood in the center of the room, an old wooden thing, the deep mahogany gleamed in the dim light. Mulder glanced around the room in a sort of awe, it was decorated in hues of blue, soft pink and lavender. That was his Scully, he thought with a small smile. Always prepared, whether or not it would have been a boy or a girl, she was prepared for both. He watched her cross over to the cradle, running her hand along it lovingly.

"My grandfather built this cradle with his own two hands," Scully said softly, almost to herself. For my mother when she was a baby," she smiled slightly. "After mom had Bill, the cradle was brought out again for him. Then Charlie and Melissa," she bit her lip at the memory of her dead sister. Mulder felt his heart constrict in pain. "And me," she continued.

"When Charlie had his kids, he got the cradle, Bill got it not long after that. I think they used to bet which one of us girls would get the cradle next, but then after Missy died...and I thought I couldn't have children...it was assumed the cradle would remain in Bill's attic until grandkids rolled around," she smiled ruefully and glanced at him. "You should have seen the look on his face when I told him to dust it off and give it to me."

Mulder smiled softly, venturing into what would have been his child's bedroom, their child. "I wasn't aware you had many family heirlooms, Scully."

"A few," she commented. "This is one of them. Mom came out about a month ago, all smiles when I told her I was pregnant. She helped decorate a bit, but not too much. She told me she wanted me to save the rest of the decorating for when 'Fox' came home," Scully's shoulders shook with invisible sobs. 

Mulder felt a fresh stab of pain in his heart. This was too much too soon. He had known Scully was pregnant, had heard it directly from her. But somehow, coming home to the bedroom for the child that would never inhabit it, made the pain all the more real. He approached her from behind, resting his hands lightly on the familiar spot in the small of her back. He could feel her relax instinctively at his touch, but her head remained bowed. 

"I was looking forward to it all you know, I didn't even mind the morning sickness, it just reminded me of this little miracle. I had never really thought about children until I discovered I couldn't have any. Somehow the loss of something I had never had was too large, overwhelming." She lifted her head and he could see the grief glimmer in her eyes in the faint light that managed to peek in through lavender shades. 

"I was looking forward to it all when I discovered I was pregnant. I was looking forward to taking turns with you in waking up in the middle of the night to soothe her back to sleep," Mulder raised an eyebrow, not at the natural assumption that he would be with her, that was obvious, but at the fact she seemed so certain it was a girl, even though there was no way she could have known. 

"I was looking forward to her first words, first steps, first day at school. I wanted it all, and now...she's gone..." the last words had wavered from her grim confidence with a small gasp. Mulder could see that she had really wanted all those little things. He knew, he had wanted them too. 

"I know, Scully, I wanted all that too, and more." He wondered if his own voice was as steady as hers had been. "There is nothing I wouldn't give up to have our baby back. And I'm not going to tell you to move on, I won't," Scully smiled briefly, grateful that he knew her so well. That was one of the things she feared the most. 

"But with time, the pain of losing someone dulls a bit. And their memory remains, along with the knowledge of their brief existence, and of how much you loved them." Mulder's voice dropped to a low whisper and Scully knew that he wasn't just talking about their baby anymore. She turned to face him, seeing that his eyes had dropped to the ground as he fought for composure. The grim fact that Mulder had not yet cried for their loss struck her. He was trying to be strong for her, again. She smiled a wavering smile at the knowledge, she gripped the small crucifix he had returned to her between her forefinger and her thumb. 

"I know Mulder, Samantha knows too...wherever she is, she knows that you loved her. And our child knows too, she has to."

Mulder bit his lip, this woman knew him too well. He had always wanted children, and the psychologist part of him acknowledged that the reason for this may have been that he had always wanted the perfect family to make up for his own shattered home life. He had wanted a daughter to make up for the sister he had lost so long ago.

He met her eyes hesitantly, and Scully could see the red that rimmed his eyes, proving the unshed tears that gleamed there. She knew that her own eyes probably looked the same, but it didn't matter anymore, not now, not with Mulder.

Scully's old Irish temper flared suddenly, this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that the two of them were crying over a child that should be growing inside her, instead of waiting, for the body to push the defunct fetus out of her system. It wasn't fair that the two of them couldn't even have this small measure of happiness. It wasn't fair!

"It's not fair," Scully hissed suddenly. Mulder drew back, alarmed by the fire in her eyes. "This isn't fair! Can't we ever be just the tiniest bit happy? Do we ever get what we want? Is it too much to ask?" She was pissed now, she turned suddenly and swung her fist against the cradle with a resounding crack, causing the wood on one side to splinter and crack slightly from the force of her blow. 

"It's not fair," she shouted at the cradle. "We don't deserve this!" she lifted her eyes to the heavens in fury. "Dammit!" she turned on him, who was watching her calmly, with the smallest touch of fear gracing his hazel eyes. 

"It's not fair," she protested weakly, wondering how many times she was going to repeat this. "Why would God take away two of my babies before I ever got the chance to know them?" Mulder's walls crumbled at her desperate plea and he caught her still clenched fist in his large, comforting hand. 

"You told me yourself once that God works in mysterious ways, Scully. I guess we'll never know." He could see her jaw muscles clench and relax in defeat. She met his eyes briefly, wordlessly, and then crumbled against him, collapsing into his waiting arms. 

He carried her out of the small room, a room that the two of them would probably not enter for a very long time, and into her own bedroom. 

"You need to sleep Scully, please?" He could sense her oncoming protests that she knew would do no good against him. Gently, he set her down on the bed and opened her drawer, withdrawing her favorite pair of silk pajamas. Thinking back over the times Mulder had been in her bedroom, she was surprised that he knew where her clothes were. But an eidetic memory could do that for some people. 

"Jacket off, Scully," he instructed gently. She obeyed, shrugging out of her leather jacket and dropping into to the floor. There was a soft thump of something hard hitting the floor and Mulder glanced down to see what it was. 

Lying just next to the jacket, was a small plastic looking tube. He frowned slightly and leaned down to pick it up. Scully was too busy shrugging out of her tank top to notice. Mulder gripped the tube gently and his forehead wrinkled in thought as he glanced down at the clear tube. Something about it looked familiar for some reason. Vague memories of an empty ally outside a bar and a limo, along with slightly fuzzy memories of Antarctica and a naked Scully, covered in green goo...

He could feel the blood rise in his cheeks at the memory, combined with the fact that Scully was now sitting next to him on her bed, with no shirt on. 

"What is it, Mulder?" She asked softly as she retrieved her pajama top from where he had dropped it and pulled it on. He turned to her with a small frown. He flipped on the lamp and held the tube up to the light. A slightly goldish liquid shone through, only a few small drops left. 

He turned his gaze to her, raising one eyebrow in a gesture that she recognized as one he had picked up from her. "Something you want to tell me, Scully?" he was obviously confused as to how she had gotten this serum that looked so much like the vaccine he had used to cure her two years ago in Antartica. She understood that, and suddenly realized that there was a lot she needed to tell him.

"I went to see Krycek and Marita Covarrubias, I demanded answers," she saw Mulder's other eyebrow raise to join it's companion on his forehead. "Scully you could have been killed," she waved him off. "I know, I know, but I had to do it Mulder," she met his eyes, seeking penance. "Like the way you had to leave a hospital with a concussion and a gunshot wound to the head to save me," she saw his cheeks color slightly at the memory. "I couldn't sit around and wait for you to wake up. I had to get out there and try to help." 

He nodded in understanding, "Scully, I think this is definite proof that you have been spending too much time around me. It's my job to make impulsive decisions that could kill me without a second thought, remember?" 

He could see her smile, even with the darkness that hovered at the edges of her smile. "Well, it was kind of hard for you to do, being in a coma and all. So I decided to take the job for a day or two." He smiled for a moment at their familiar banter. It was as if nothing had ever changed, as if he hadn't been missing for two months, been in a coma for three days, and as if the two of them hadn't just lost a child. 

This was obviously not lost on Scully, he could see her eyes darkening also. 

"So did you get answers from Ratboy?" He asked lightly, the tube he held in his hand proof of his question. Scully nodded darkly, "He told me 'they' had updated their abduction technique in the past several years. I was abducted as a test subject. You were abducted for a whole other reason." She spotted Mulder's frown and shook her head slightly, auburn strands of hair falling across her face with the movement. 

"He told me you were too important for mindless experiments..." Scully's words struck a chord somewhere deep inside Mulder's eidetic memory. He glanced up sharply and she stopped. 

'Mulder is important, too important to waste to these mindless experiments ... hold on, hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell... a sonogram... heart stopped... my fault... my fault... how am I going to tell him?... Come back to me... I need you... '

All the memories that he had been assaulted with as he had struggled free of the darkness. He knew that some of the memories had not been his, rather they had been Scully's, though until now he had not really considered it. 

He knew, somehow, what Scully knew, she had just confirmed his suspicions. He shook his head, not sure of how to tell her yet and let her continue. "It's nothing Scully, go on." 

She gave him an unsure glance, but continued nonetheless. "They told me that..." she trailed off and met his dark hazel eyes. "Cancerman is dead."

Mulder frowned and leaned forward on the bed next to her. "Are they sure this time?" 

Scully nodded, "I think they actually saw the body and buried it. He was dying anyway, it was only a matter of time." 

Mulder nodded, the sense of relief he felt at the fact that his mortal enemy was dead was small, compared to all he had taken away from the two of them over the years. "He won Scully," as much as he hated the words coming out of his mouth, he knew they had to be true. He had never gotten anything from Cancerman but lies and pain. 

Scully looked at him with a measure of guarded surprise, "It would appear so, it seems that he has gotten away with all he's done over the years. And in a sense, he has won. But through the years, in little ways, and in the end, overall, we have won. They can't touch us now, we're stronger together, and they know it."

Mulder regarded her with a blithe astonishment at her candid view of their struggle. His fingers closed over the tube and he realized that she was right. They had won, in little ways, they had won their lives, and the ability to keep searching. To keep going. And at the moment, despite all they had lost, that was all that was important. 

His other hand found hers and his fingers curled around her own as he regarded the serum in silence. "So what else did Krycek tell you about this vaccine?" 

Scully shook her head, "Not much, Marita told me that she didn't know much about how it worked. Only that it triggered the regenerative cells and tissue inside the body. I realized then that's how I got pregnant," her eyes darkened and her hand instinctively strayed to her stomach. 

"My ovaries had been rebuilding themselves since you injected me with that other vaccine. It didn't just attack the virus, it attacked all that had gone wrong with my body, including my womb." Scully's voice held steady, detached, as if she was talking about someone else, a patient or the cold facts off a case. But Mulder could see how shaken she was. 

"And here I thought all this time that all those years of celibacy had made me the most fertile son of a bitch alive," Mulder said dryly. Scully smiled faintly, "For awhile, so did I."

He regarded the serum for a moment, then turned it over to her. "You saved a few drops," he commented softly. She turned the tube over in her hand and nodded, "I wasn't sure whether or not it could hurt you in a large amount, plus I wanted to save some in case the guys needed some more to analyze it..." her excuses that had seemed so solid a few days ago, sounded flimsy to her now. Mulder nodded, though she could practically hear the gears in his head grinding. 

"Got a syringe, Scully?" He asked softly. She turned to regard him with a slight confusion, her brow furrowed. "What are you thinking, Mulder?"

He shook his head slightly. "I'm thinking that we should use the rest of this serum on you."

She stared at him for a long moment, letting his words sink in. Then she realized. He was afraid that the other vaccine would wear off, that somehow she would be left barren again. She wanted to tell him that it was scientifically impossible, but the entire concept of how she had been healed in the first place wasn't entirely scientifically possible. 

"Mulder there's no need..." he shook his head and cut her off with a finger to her lips. "Get me the syringe, Scully," his tone left no room for arguement, and she figured it wouldn't hurt to indulge him a bit. She stood, slowly, changing into her silk pajama pants on her way to her bathroom. She retrieved a small needle and came back out.

Mulder was staring at the serum with a sort of fascination. "This has to be much more powerful than the one I used on you Scully. It healed me within the space of a few hours. And the first vaccine had to be delivered within ninety-six hours, this one was delievered after several months and I was fine. What does it mean?" He frowned at the few drops of liquid left in the container, as if glaring at it would get him the answers. 

"Marita told me virtually the same thing Mulder. If we saved that, we could find out," she informed him helpfully. He turned to her and considered her words for a long moment. "No, the guys are probably figuring it out as we speak. These last few drops are for you."

Scully shook her head slightly at his stubborness and handed him the needle. She realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that under other circumstances she would have insisted that the vaccine be taken to the lab to be studied, but something inside her was urging her to do this. 

She handed Mulder the syringe. He pulled at the ampoule of the tube and sucked the last drops out of the small container with the syringe. The memory of doing the same thing several years ago under the ice of Antartica popped into mind once again. 

At least this time Scully was conscious beforehand. 

And dressed. 

In retrospect, Mulder wasn't sure if that was a good thing. 

He leaned towards her, pushing her shirt aside gently, feeling her breath hitch and he pushed aside the golden chain of her necklace, smoothing her skin under his fingertips. "It's okay, Scully, I've done this before." Slowly, he eased the remaining serum into her system, emptying the syringe. He glanced up at her to see her eyes drooping slightly. "Alright," he whispered softly. "Time to sleep," he pulled back the covers of her bed with one hand and eased her between the sheets with the other. 

Slowly, he switched off the light and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Night, Scully..." he moved away, prepared for a night on her couch, when she caught him with one hand.

"You said you would stay with me forever," she murmured sleepily, eyes now closed. He smiled and tilted his head, "I did, didn't I?"

"Yes," she replied, pulling him into the bed with her. "And I'm holding you to that, Fox Mulder. Now get in this bed and keep me warm."

He chuckled half heartedly and did as she asked, shrugging off the excessive clothes, leaving him in a t-shirt and boxers. "Better?" He asked.

Scully nodded, snuggling up against him in the darkness. "Much...Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you mean it when you said we could have more kids?" He wondered suddenly if she was aware of the things she was asking him. Didn't she know that he wanted this as much as she did?

"With all my heart Scully, there is nothing I want more than to just be with you, and to have a family..." his heart shook with the thought of it all. He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. "That is perfect to me, that is the life I have dreamed of for so long..." he trailed off noticing that her breathing had become more regular, her face had eased of it's lines and there was a peace there that he had only seen a few times before. 

He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her, "I love you, Scully." he whispered, feeliing the need to say the words even if she could no longer hear him. 

Then he drifted with her into the realm of sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~

When she awoke the next morning, the first thing that registered in Scully's mind was the only thing worth knowing. That Mulder was safe, he was alive, and he was sleeping, curled up next to her. She smiled and let herself drift in his arms, not wanting to remember the other things that had happened to them in the previous few days. Not wanting to relive the pain of it all. 

But it was brought up all too suddenly by a sudden churning of her stomach. Her eyes flew open in surprise and she bolted out of bed. She barely made it to the bathroom before she vomited what little she had eaten the day before. 

She flushed the toilet and leaned her fevered head against the cold porcelain of the bathtub, leaning against it for support, clasping her crucifix tightly in her palm, feeling it indent her flesh, the pain a welcome distraction from her body's confusing messages. She struggled to her feet as Mulder made his way to the doorway. He leaned against it, watching her silently as she splashed her face with cold water and brushed the taste out of her mouth. 

When she turned to face him, she saw only fear, and a bit of confusion taking form in his eyes. She could tell that something was ticking away in his head, but she couldn't figure out what. She brushed back the wisps of hair that bestrew her face and breathed deeply, fighting the waves of naseua. 

"You still have that doctor's appointment today?" He asked, his voice was low and she could tell that he was trying to hide emotion from it, covering his concern and something else, another emotion she could not place, with his usual monotone. 

"Yeah, at ten," Scully confirmed. Mulder nodded, "What time is it now?"

Scully glanced at the clock behind him then met his eyes again, "It's nine." 

Mulder nodded, trying to keep his voice even, "Well we should probably get dressed, we don't want to be late."

Scully frowned, she hadn't recalled inviting him, not that it mattered anymore. She wasn't going to let him out of her sight right now, and she had the feeling that he wasn't going to let her go anytime soon. She nodded slightly, following him out of the bathroom. "Alright," she agreed simply, obviously surprising him with her flippant regard as to whether or not he came. 

"Get dressed G-man and let's get going."

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully had always hated hospitals. There should probably be some flawed logic with that, she supposed, being a doctor and all. She had always disliked them, too cold, too stark and bare. After joining the X-Files and Mulder, she had grown to loathe them with a passion, there was no secret as to why. She had recieved some of the worse news in her life within hospital walls. Glancing at Mulder, she knew he shared her hatred of the formal buildings. 

She could never stop the onslaught of memories that assaulted her every time she approached a hospital. This time was no different. 

'It looks like a computer chip....that's what it looks like... It happened just a few hours ago, Melissa went into surgery and the, the damage was worse than they thought. And she just slipped away.... I have cancer, it's a tumor, a mass between my temporal lobe, it's treatable, but inoperable. Terminal....Emily, she died.... The baby's heart stopped...'

Looking back, it was a bit ironic. Many of the most important moments of her life had also occured in hospitals...

'I had the strength of your beliefs....As long as I can continue to work, I will. I will continue, with you.... My cancer has gone into remission, they have no idea how it happened....Scully? I love you... Well, the world didn't end.... I'm pregnant....' 

As Scully neared the hospital in contemplative silence, she could only wonder which list today would end up on. 

Mulder glanced over at his partner, studying her shadowed features quietly. There was a darkness in her eyes that he could not identify. Those bright blue eyes were usually so clear, hopeful. But the hope appeared gone now. Silently Mulder vowed to himself that he would do anything he could to get that hope back into her eyes. 

Scully seemed deep in her own contemplation, unaware of his scrutiny. Her head reclined on the seat, auburn hair spread out against the dark fabric of the seat. She was pale, Mulder noted with a frown. And she was thin, thinner than a pregnant woman should be... he caught himself at that thought. Scully wasn't pregnant anymore, despite what he hoped. 

Slowing to a stop in front of the hospital, Scully didn't move. Mulder bit his lip and reached out with one hand to stroke her cheek gently. She warmed under his touch, turning her eyes to meet his. "What is it?"

Mulder nodded towards behind her, "We're here."

"Oh," Scully sat up and glanced out the window. "Okay," without another word she opened the car door and slipped out. Mulder stared after her for a long moment, then followed in silence. 

~ ~ ~ ~

"Overall, Ms. Scully, you seem perfectly healthy, regardless of what has happened to you." The doctor glanced down at the chart he held in his hands and then up at Scully. His expression softened slightly and he pulled up a chair in front of her. "We would like to run an ultrasound..." he trailed off as Scully nodded in understanding. They needed to see why her body had not yet gotten rid of the child. Mulder squeezed her shoulder in comfort and she leaned her head back against his arm, grateful that he was there. 

"A nurse will be in shortly to do the ultrasound, just try to relax, all right?" Scully nodded at the young doctor silently as he left the room. 

"You okay?" Mulder's voice was soft behind her and she reached up to grip his hand resting on her shoulder. She considered his words for a long moment, fighting the urge to tell him that she was fine. Instead she shook her head slightly and whispered, "No."

Mulder eased down on the bed next to her, sliding his arm around to rest his hand on the small of her back. She smiled faintly at the familiar gesture that always brought her comfort. She leaned her head against his shoulder, breathing in his spicy clean scent from the shower he had taken earlier. He hugged her close to his side and she allowed herself to relax against him. 

"Mulder," her voice was soft, a caress against his skin. "I love you, you know that, right?" she wasn't sure why she felt the need to say it, but she relished the words, enjoyed just being able to say them after so many years of hiding her feelings. 

He smiled gently, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, "I know." 

She turned her eyes to meet his and opened her mouth again to say something -- and was interrupted by the nurse, wheeling in sonogram equipment. 

The nurse shot a knowing glance towards the cozy couple on the bed and smiled at Scully. "Mrs...?" She glanced down at her chart. "Scully?" 

"No, it's just Ms." Scully corrected her, feeling Mulder's blush. 

"For now," Mulder added. Scully glanced at him with surprise and he glanced back at her with an even expression. Before she could comment, the nurse moved on. 

"Alright Ms. Scully, I need you to lie back on the bed and lift up your shirt." Scully couldn't hide a grin as she glanced at her partner. "Where have I heard that before?" she muttered under her breath. Mulder chuckled softly, grateful that she could still make jokes. Scully leaned back, Mulder's hand again on her arm, and lifted her dark blue blouse, revealing her stomach. 

Mulder grimaced at the small scar evident there, an obtrusive reminder of their years together, and all that she had gone through. Scully caught his glance and crinkled her nose. "See something you like, Mulder?"

He glanced back up at her, sheepish at getting caught. "No," he admitted. Scully frowned and glanced down, slender fingers tracing the scar. "It's okay, Mulder," she caught his gaze with hers and Mulder for a moment saw the innocent young agent that had walked through the door of his basement office all those years ago. And he could see the strong woman, fighting through her grief, as she had done too many times before. 

Mulder caught her fingers with one hand as he slid back into the chair. "I just, forget sometimes..." he trailed off and Scully nodded. "I know, it's all right."

They finished setting up the equipment and smiled gently at the two of them as a young, female doctor breezed through the doorway. She smiled at them also and pulled something off a shelf. "How are you feeling today Ms. Scully?"

Scully smiled a bit, "It's Doctor Scully actually," she informed the other doctor. Mulder glanced at her, wondering why she hadn't told the nurse that. "And not so good," Scully ran a hand through her hair and watched as the doctor spread a cold gel on her stomach with a small shiver.

"Mm- hmm," the doctor nodded. "And you were in a car accident a few days ago?"

Scully winced slightly and nodded, "Yes. I was pregnant at the time..." she trailed off as the doctor's sharp green eyes met hers. "Was?" Scully nodded grimly and the doctor lowered her head in understanding. "I see," she lowered the transducer to Scully's abdomen and rubbed it over her stomach gently. A fuzzy image appeared on the screen behind her and Scully glanced up to it.

There was nothing but darkness for a long moment, then something appeared on the screen. A small mass, steady and beating.

Scully's jaw dropped and the doctor's eyes widened. "This can't be," the doctor murmurred. She glanced back up at Scully and raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure that your doctor told you the baby's heart stopped?" Scully was staring at the screen in slack jawed amazement, leaving Mulder utterly confused, his suspicions suddenly raised. 

Slowly, Scully shook her head, "The doctor told a friend of mine who related the news to me...Is it possible that he was wrong about the baby's heart stopping?" 

"Possible," the doctor confirmed. "But not likely."

"Excuse me," Mulder interrupted. "But would the two of you like to share with the class?" Scully pulled her gaze from the monitor to an obviously confused Mulder. 

"Mulder...the baby is alive."

For a long moment, the two just stared into each others eyes, neither moved, didn't dare to breathe. It all clicked for Mulder, he had hoped that there had been some mistake, after seeing her morning sickness and mood swings, but he hadn't dared to believe. But it was true, their child was alive.

Finally the doctor nodded in understanding, "Have you still had morning sickness these past few days?" Scully nodded slowly, still trying to take it all in. "Yes, I thought it was odd, but I never considered..." 

The doctor smiled, "Well there is no mistake this time, that is one steady heartbeat," she froze the image on the screen and smiled. "Congragulations, Dana, you're still pregnant."

Scully stared after the doctor in wonder as she left the room to fill out her chart. Mulder was transfixed, enraptured by the tiny image of a heartbeat on the screen. With trembling fingers, he reached out and touched the small heartbeat. Scully followed his gesture and their fingers overlapped on the screen, reaching out to touch the essence of their child. 

"She's still alive Scully, our baby isn't dead after all." 

Scully frowned suddenly, "But how?" 

Mulder gazed at her for a long moment, then looked back to the screen, pulling both of their hands away. His jaw muscle clenched and he furrowed his eyebrows in a habit Scully had seen many times before. Like he was trying to process information and figure it out. 

"There are so many probable answers...the doctors could have made a simple mistake after all. Or maybe the serum..." he trailed off and met her rapidly widening eyes again. "You told me that the vaccine I gave you last year had slowly rebuilt your ovaries, is it possible that it rebuilt our child?" 

Scully wrinkled her forehead in a skeptical expression he had seen before. "Mulder..."

"No, think about it Scully. What if the vaccine is still working inside you, what if it caught our child after it's heart stopped and somehow brought her back to life? Maybe it triggered the regenerative tissues that were still growing and when I gave you the vaccine last night that helped in some way. I don't know medicine like you do, but it's possible, isn't it?" his eyes searched hers for an answer and she couldn't help but chuckle. For Fox Mulder, old habits seemed to die hard. As much as a believer as he was, he still couldn't stop and believe in miracles. And he still searched for answers. 

"Maybe it's just a miracle Mulder," she caught his own skeptical look, yes Fox Mulder has a skeptical look believe it or not, and continued. "Maybe you did something when you were in that other place, maybe by refusing to let go of our child's essence, you saved her." 

Mulder scratched his jaw idly, "I don't know..." he said softly, meeting her eyes. "I guess we'll never know," Scully continued for him. "I guess we should just accept our miracle with dignity and thank God for giving us back our baby."

Mulder smiled gently and glanced back down at her stomach. "I think that's a good idea," he whispered. He stared at her stomach with almost reverent joy and grinned broadly. "There's really a baby in there," he stated. Scully grinned back, her first real smile in two months. "Yes there is."

Mulder grinned and leaned his head against her stomach, as if he could feel the child, or hear it. "My baby," he noted with a measure of pride in his voice. Scully let out a throaty chuckle, "Our baby, Mulder," she ran her fingers lightly through his hair and felt tears of joy fill her eyes. "She's ours."

~ ~ ~ ~

end part five


	6. Coming Home: Part Six of Six

Delectation 6/6

The ride back home was spent in complete silence. But there was nothing uncomfortable about it. Hands clasped tightly, the two sat in the car, each lost in their own thoughts and speaking volumes without ever uttering a single syllable. All the walls were gone, crumbled and crushed into dust at their feet. The comforting stillness, broken only by their synchronous breathing, enveloped them and left them completely open, souls bare before the other. And yet, neither of them were uncomfortable with it at all. Mulder mused on his earlier thoughts, they were whole, one soul, one heart. They were one. Perfect and utterly complete. 

This was the happiest he could remember being in a long, long time. His heart filled with joy, he had the woman he loved, and a child on the way. There was nothing better than this, he thought. This was ecstasy in a whole new way, this was delectation. 

He slowed to a stop in front of Scully's apartment building, it was silently understood between the two of them that this was their home now, it just made more sense. He glanced over at her with a genuine smile. 

"I think I'm going to go back to my apartment, grab some things until we can get a moving truck," he told her. She turned to him and he could see the same joy reflected there. She smiled, a truly beautiful thing on her really, he never underestimated the beauty of her smile and the love held in her eyes, just for him. 

She wasn't at all surprised, though others would have seen this as a bit rude, he hadn't even asked if she wanted him to stay any longer, much less forever. But that was exactly what Scully wanted, that was what he wanted too. 

"Okay," her voice was soft and she brushed her lips across his cheek for an all too fleeting moment. "I'm gonna call my mom, hurry home?" 

He nodded as she slipped out of the car, her slender form was getting more plump, in a few weeks she would be showing. "I will," he smiled again at her. "I love you Scully." Her smile was all the response he needed, and he pulled out of her parking lot as she slipped inside the building. 

His apartment, over the course of the past two months, was virtually the same. He could tell that the others had been there. Scully, probably had stayed the first few nights back in DC in his bed, reveling in his familiar belongings. Frohike had probably cleaned out his video collection the first chance he got, Mulder shrugged his jacket off with a grin, it didn't matter, he had the object of his fantasies in the flesh now, and for the rest of his life. 

At least, it would be if he got his way. 

The apartment was the same, same battered leather couch. Same cramped kitchen and bedroom, same window sticky with old tape that had peeled off, the stickiness remained behind, gathering dust and dirt in the shape of an X. Same old pictures on his dresser in his bedroom, that small picture of Samantha at eight years old smiled up at him, her long dark hair in those damn braids he had always teased her about. He ran his fingers along the image of his baby sister, now long gone, for a moment, before sliding the picture off of the table and into a duffel bag he was holding. Next was a picture of his family, when they had all been younger, happier, with a slight hesitation, that went as well. 

But there was one picture that was separate from the rest of his collection. On the small table next to his bed sat a picture of him and Scully. It had been taken years ago in the middle of some case. The stood in a motel room and Mulder smiled, remembering the day as clear as it had happened yesterday. They had been working together for only a few months, back when she still maintained that there was a scientific explanation for everything. They had just warmed up to each other, yes, he remembered now, it had been a short time after the Toom's case had been closed, before the X-Files had been shut down and Deep Throat killed. They had been arguing good naturedly over a trivial matter of the case and he had been digging through his suitcase simultaneously when he had happened upon his camera. He had whipped it out with a grin and Scully had groaned and flopped onto the bed. 

'Smile Scully!' he had said, pointing the thing at her. She had flashed him her, by then patented, 'Scully glare' and told him that if he took a picture of her looking like that she would shoot him. He had just smiled and told her she was beautiful no matter what. He remembered how she had flushed at that and reluctantly agreed. 

He had set the camera on the end table and told her to strike a pose, she had glared at him but his smile had gotten to her and at the last moment, she had stretched out into a full out Scully smile. And the precious moment had been caught on camera, he hadn't been able to believe his luck. The image of him standing there, towering over her and grinning like a fool while she gazed up at him with a smile, had managed to raise his spirits every time he had started to curse himself for what he had put her through over the years. It was a talent he had perfected. 

With another broad grin he swept the picture into his bag and continued to survey the apartment. 

Same dead fish in the tank, same abstruse bed in his cramped bedroom. Yes, his apartment was the same one he had lived in for nearly ten years now. But it was no longer his home. Scully was his home. She had been for seven years, now he just needed to sign some papers and it would be official. 

Which brought him to his next objective. 

He dropped to his hands and knees on his bedroom floor and felt the wood underneath his bed, searching for that loose floorboard...

There it was. He pried it up gently and groped inside for the small box he had retrieved from his mother's home months before, a few weeks after her death. His long fingers closed around the box and he smiled to himself. It was still there. He sat himself, crosslegged, on his bed before opening the box and looking inside. 

Inside the box, perched on the soft, dark velvet was a small ring, obviously fit for a woman's finger. It was of braided gold and silver in a classic Celtic style. That's what he loved about this ring, it had been his great grandmother's ring, she had been Irish. His great grandfather had bought her a ring in a traditional Celtic design and it had been passed down in the family ever since. His grandmother had worn it, and his mother. A few years earlier Mulder's mother had tried to 'subtly' convince him that some day he would want to settle down and the ring was his for the taking. 

In reflection, Mulder remembered that it had been just after the 'Paper Clip' incident that his mother had brought it up. After she had first met Scully. Mulder shook his head with a wry smile, apparently everyone had seen that they were in love long before either of them had seen it, or at least done anything about it. 

He turned the ring over in his palm, watching the small sapphires, identical to Scully's eyes, he noted, sparkle in the light. There was a traditional diamond set in the center, elegant and neat. He could already picture what it would look like on his partner's slender finger. It was perfect. Scully was going to love it. 

He slid the box into the inside pocket of his jacket and set about collecting his things. He and Scully would be out with the guys in a few weeks to throw out what he didn't need, and ship what he did over to Scully's--no, over to their apartment. He blew out a wistful sigh as he surveyed the apartment, he would miss some of it though. A lot of history had occured in this very apartment, and in the hallway outside of it, he recalled. He had almost kissed Scully for the first time out there, had almost told her how much he loved her in that hallway two years ago when she had been so close to leaving him. 

He had come to the conclusion that he was in love with her while sitting on that leather couch. He had been laying there, contemplating his life after one of there many near brushes with death, he couldn't recall the instance or exactly when it had been. But the simple facts that he could no longer live without her, had entered his mind. They had not gone away until he realized he was hopelessly in love with his partner, even then, they hadn't gone away entirely. 

And it had been in that bedroom, on one fateful night when she had fallen asleep on his couch. He had brushed her hair off of her face and tucked a blanket around her. He had wanted to kiss her then, but had restrained himself to go and collapse in his own bed. He would have never suspected that she would be the one to initiate their fledgling intimate relationship. She had gotten up to go to the bathroom and had slipped into his room so silently. He knew she had probably just been watching him sleep, like he did to her so much. Then she had slipped into his bed as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to find him wide awake. She had chuckled and asked how he could have been able to stand the couch for years. He had just smiled and pulled her close, never expecting her to want more, as much as he had. 

That night had been one of silent revelations, they had discovered that night that they were perfect together. They fit together in every possible way, minds, bodies and souls, locked together that night. 

It had been in that bedroom that he had made love to Dana Scully for the first time, and that was something he would never forget as long as he lived. 

Mulder stood in the doorway of his apartment for the last time and silently bid farewell to the last aspect of his bachelorhood with only a small ounce of regret and sadness, for what life he was going to live now was so much better than the lonely one he had lived before. He was going to be a father, a husband and the lover of the woman he loved more than anything in the world. 

He surveyed the apartment: the sticky X on the window, the dead fish in the tank, the lumpy couch that had housed many of his nightmares for several years, the bedroom that one woman had occupied in the entire time he had lived there, whether she had been there physically or not. There were many awful memories that filled this place, but scattered among the bad there was always good. Mulder smiled ruefully at the apartment one last time before turning and closing the door, a duffel bag of his clothes and essential items slung over his shoulder. He walked down the hall that harbored a few more trips for his photographic memory with a wistful smile.

And he didn't look back once. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Scully was stretched out on the bed when he returned, her hands clasped protectively over her stomach, a dazzling smile still stretched out on her lips. He dropped the bag gently by the door and shrugged his leather jacket off onto a chair, mindful of the ring still inside, and crossed over to where she lay. He knelt by the bed and softly rested his head against her stomach murmurring softly to the baby within. 

Scully opened her eyes slowly, grinning softly at the sight of her partner with his head resting on her stomach, trying to feel the baby inside. "Feel anything?" she asked.

Mulder shook his head against her skin without turning to look at her, "Not yet, but I intend to stay here until I do." 

Scully chuckled, "Then you could be here a long time, babies don't usually get active until their third or fouth month, you could be here for weeks." 

Mulder kissed the bare skin of her stomach lightly, sending shivers up her spine at the feather light caresses. "I am a very patient man you know," he commented softly. Scully snorted, Fox Mulder and patient were not generally in the same sentence. That is unless you were talking about her too. Like the way he had patiently waited at her bedside when she was in the hospital. Or the way he patiently weedled his theories into her mind over the years, waiting for her to believe. 

"You are, Mulder," she said tenderly, her heart filling again with love for this man that loved her so much. He glanced up at her, surprised that she had agreed with him. She ran her fingers through his silky brown strands of hair and smiled at him, something she was getting more accustomed to lately. 

Mulder eased his head off of her stomach and moved up to lie next to her, he smiled back and eased an errant strand of hair off her ivory skin. He watched her for a long moment then frowned, "I missed you, Scully..." 

She turned her head, her eyes meeting his. She furrowed her eyebrow with a grin, "We were only apart for a few hours Mulder..."

He shook his head, his arm stretched up and over his head to toy with her hair aimlessly. "I don't mean that, I mean these past few months. I don't remember much, but I remember missing you," he buried his face in her neck. "I would replay times together in my head, good and bad. I would just spend hours when they left me alone, remembering what it felt like to kiss you, to hold you..." tears burned his eyes and he realized that he had not let himself cry since he had returned to her. Usually he was the one more open with emotion, and she was the one who had collapsed against him sobbing the other night. 

Scully was stunned by his revelations, she had done the same exact thing for the past two months. She put one hand up to stroke his face gently as she felt hot tears against her neck. Her shoulders slumped in relief. She had been terrified that he would take her role and lock his emotions up, she didn't want him to do that. 

She eased his head up out of the crook of her neck and smiled at him again. "I did too Mulder...god...I've missed your warmth...your strength so much," she kissed the faint marks left by his tears and leaned her cheek against his. "And God, I have missed these beautiful lips..." 

He pulled away just enough to meet her softly smoldering eyes with his own. The burning intensity Scully saw in his eyes was one she had seen many times before, and not enough times in this situation. He moved his hand down to her head and slid his fingers into her crimson tresses. Slowly, he eased his mouth down to meet hers in a gentle, loving kiss. It lasted only a few seconds before she pulled away. The feeling of loss was immediate for both and Scully gasped slightly at the shock before his mouth swept down on hers again, hungry and passionate this time. She gripped at his shirt, longing to feel him pressed against her again, it had been too long and God, she had missed him. 

She pulled away long enough to whisper a husky "I love you," at the same time he did. They both grinned simultaneously and that was when Scully knew what Mulder had long ago discovered. 

They were one. 

And as the night wore on, the two were one again, and lost together in their delectation.

~ ~ ~ ~

"I don't think I'll ever be able to leave this bed again," Scully whispered breathlessly the next morning as dawn crept across the sky and through their windowpane. Mulder snuggled up against her and kissed her shoulder gently. "Fine by me, I'll stay with you," his gentle hand rested on her stomach again, and she discovered she found the gesture as natural and as comforting as how he always pressed the small of her back. Protective and loving was all that gesture was, it meant more to Scully than anything in the world at the moment. 

"Think Skinner would miss us?" she asked softly, Mulder heaved a deep sigh as if considering it and then shook his head. "I think we have enough vacation time saved up for early retirement."

Scully chuckled and rolled over, resting her head on his chest. For the first time she saw the light through the window and smiled, content in the moment. "Hey, it's dawn. We've been up all night, you know that?" Mulder followed her gaze out of the window and smiled, not just a few days ago he had been awake at dawn, worrying for her. Now she was safe in his arms and nothing at this moment could hurt her. 

"I guess it just proves what seven years of sexual tension will do for one's relationship," he laughed softly as Scully ran her nails up and down his chest. "Well...then maybe we should take a break for another seven years..." she suggested. Mulder jumped at the thought. "No!"

Scully smirked playfully, "I don't know, if I get a repeat of last night..." 

"I can gurantee you'll get that every night if you marry me," the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them and he groaned inwardly as she stiffened in his arms. 

"I'm sorry Scully, I..." he trailed off as she pressed one slender finger to his mouth and slowly met his deep now green eyes. "You really want to marry me?"

He crinkled his nose at the ridiculous question, "Of course I do, and not just because you're great in bed. I love you Scully..." he traced lazy circles on her stomach again and added, "The fact that you're carrying my child doesn't hurt either..."

She beamed widely, "Do I get a ring?"

"It's in my bag," Scully raised an eyebrow at the swift response. She hadn't actually expected him to have a ring, but he was already rolling out of bed to retrieve it. She sat up at the loss of his warmth and wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes followed his lean swimmer/runner's body as he crossed the room to pull a small box out of his jacket. He turned back, catching her appreciative gaze and tossed the box in her direction. She pulled her eyes from him long enough to catch it in one hand and open it with the other. She drew in a breath at the sight of the ring, it was exquisite. 

"Oh Mulder..."

"It was my great grandmother's," he explained. "The cradle was your heirloom...this is mine."

Scully looked up, blue eyes bright. "I love it."

He grinned, "So you'll marry me?"

She met his gaze without wavering and was stunned by the power of the love and joy she saw there that she could only whisper, "Yes," before he pulled her into his arms again, kissing her with more passion than she would have thought he had left. 

And the sun rose over their heads. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Seven months came and went quickly, Mulder and Scully had decided to wait until after their baby was born to have the wedding. One thing at a time, they told everyone.

Though Mulder secretly suspected that his wife to be just didn't want to look fat in her wedding dress. 

They returned to work after that first week reunited. The cases were light at first, Skinner was trying to make things easy for them. But after awhile they slipped back into their normal routine. Any concept of 'rules' against dating within the bureau had been completely denounced at that point. There were no written rules, and with Skinner on their side and maintaining completely professional relationships at work, the rules never stood a chance against Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. 

They never had. 

By the sixth month of Scully's pregnancy they stopped fieldwork. Remained in the office, doing paperwork. It was driving them both nuts. 

By the seventh month they decided to take some of their well earned vacation time before they drove anyone else in the office nuts. 

And then one crisp November morning Scully awoke with worse pains than usual, Mulder, being as overprotective as he is, rushed her to the hospital. 

Twenty-one hours later, at 5:10 a.m. on November 17th another Mulder was brought into the world. She was a tiny little thing that her parents fell in love with at first sight. Her hair was dark red, with traces of copper sprinkling her strands. Her eyes were a calming blue-green, having inherited both of her parent's best traits. She was the most beautiful thing the two of them had ever laid eyes on.

"Mulder, she's perfect," Scully cradled their daughter in her arms, looking so natural at motherhood that no one would have guessed that a year ago she had believed she would never concieve children. "She is, she is perfect," Mulder sat beside the bed, one arm around Scully and beamed at his baby girl who was tiredly playing with his finger. 

Scully frowned suddenly, "She needs a name."

Mulder glanced at his fiance, "She does... we never really considered it did we?"

"No..." Scully confirmed. She glanced down at her daughter's face and smiled, "Samantha?" 

Mulder lowered his head at the mention of his dead sister that he had spent half of his life looking for, it would make sense to name his daughter after her aunt, the woman, the girl who had brought the two of them together. But for some reason, it just didn't seem right to have another Samantha Mulder running around. 

"No...we should leave the dead buried...we should have our own name for her, something original and meaningful...let those who are finally at peace stay that way."

Scully knew it was still hard for him to think of Samantha as dead, so she just nodded slowly, silently crossing 'Emily' and 'Melissa' off her list. She had been thinking along the same lines actually. 

The two of them stared at their sleepy daughter for a long moment before Scully wrinkled her forehead. "Liana," she whispered softly to the child in her arms. Instantly the babe stirred and looked at her, as if wondering why she was being woken. 

Mulder noted the reaction and smiled, "Liana," he said the name himself, it rolled off the tongue, seeming to fit the small being they had created. The baby stirred again and glanced at her father with a look that appeared very much like her mother's patented glare. Mulder chuckled, "I think it's her," he glanced at his fiance with a curious expression. "What does it mean?"

Scully met his hazel eyes without hesitation and whispered, "Bond..." and Mulder understood. This child had been the product of their unique bond and trust that they had formed over the years. Their bond had led them thus far, it was perfect. 

"Your turn," Scully said. "She needs a middle name."

Mulder turned and studied his daughter for a few minutes, at last he nodded and turned back to his fiance. "Maret."

"Maret?"

"It means 'wide eyed beauty of the moon'," he nodded out the window to the full moon that was rapidly disappearing with the sunrise. The three were bathed suddenly with the feathery tendrils of light that spread in through the window. The sun rose in the distance bathing them in golden, silver and copper light. 

It was the most magnificent sunrise Scully had ever seen on the morning her daughter was born. 

"Liana Maret Mulder," she christened the babe with the name aloud. She nodded as her daughter stirred again, "I think she likes it too."

Mulder smiled and marveled in open mouthed awe at the tiny life his partner held in her arms. He had helped create this beautiful thing, this child that had come from the two of them. "She's so beautiful..." he whispered, stroking the soft tufts of crimson hair with one finger. Liana moved slightly under his touch and opened her dark verdant eyes and stared up at her father. Mulder beamed down at the girl and kissed her forehead gently. 

"She is," Scully agreed quietly, watching the two of them together was an even more beautiful scene. "And she's lucky," Mulder said with a grin towards her. "She got your nose."

"And even more lucky that she's got your lips," Scully smirked at him and leaned over to kiss him soundly. Liana stared up in wide eyed amazement at the two remarkable people she had gotten as parents. Scully pulled away slightly and leaned her head against his cheek, glancing back down towards their child. "I love you, Liana Maret..." she whispered softly. She didn't care what anybody said, the pain had been worth it. Just to be able to hold her daughter in her arms and watch her made it all worth it. 

Mulder shifted his position slightly and kissed Scully softly on the cheek. "I love you both," he whispered. Scully sighed and closed her eyes, Mulder smiled gently at her and lifted their daughter out of her arms, content to let her sleep, it would be the last good night's rest she would have for a long time. 

Mulder gathered his tiny, hours old child into his arms, and pressed her to his chest protectively. Liana just continued to stare at him, her blue green gaze was unmistakably something she had inherited, her eyes seemed to pry into his soul and he smiled down at her. Standing, he crossed over to the window to gaze out at the morning aurora as it lit the child's hair with a scarlet glow, Mulder rocked his daughter gently in his arms, lulling her to sleep. But Liana appeared to have lost all interest in the concept of sleep. She grabbed his finger with one tiny fist and he wondered at the power in her grip, she was as strong as her mother and he had the sneaking suspicion that she would be as opinionated as well. It didn't matter, Mulder didn't mind. All he cared about at that moment was his fiance, asleep on the bed, and this tiny phenomenon in his arms. 

The morning light streamed through the window as the sun broke through the mist into the sky. Liana squinted at him, the brightness of the light caused the colors in her eyes to dance from green to blue and every shade in between. Mulder grinned and turned away from the window, she was truly amazing. Everything that had happened since that day they had left the hospital seemed to be a dream. But it wasn't, it was real and they were all alive, all three of them, that fact in and of itself the most extraordinary of it all. 

He bent his head to kiss her on the forehead once more, "I love you Liana Maret," he murmured softly, repeating Scully's earlier words. "I will always love you." 

Mulder leaned his forehead gently against his daughter's and smiled as she cooed softly. There were no words for this moment, the silence said it all. There was already a connection established between father and daughter, a bond as close as the one he shared with Scully. There were no words worthy of describing this resplendent moment in time, the silence spoke volumes that he would never be able to say to her. 

And as the sun rose overhead, Fox Mulder was, for the first time in many years, utterly happy and at peace. This was delectation, this was home. 

~ ~ ~ ~

They were married on a warm morning in March. 

March seventh, to be exact. The date was not lost on either of them. In the haze of the months after Liana was born, they had scant time to think, much less plan for a wedding. But they had decided on the day as fitting, the anniversary of their time together. Eight years ago to the day the two had been brought together as partners, had been compelled to respect the other, and had come to trust each other. And unexpectedly, fallen in love with each other. 

And after all they had been through, they had just come out stronger, and more in love than ever. In a way, they owed a lot to Cancerman and Blevins, as twisted as the two men were and as much they had done to the two, they had brought Mulder and Scully together, created the perfect partnership with these two soulmates. Science and fantasy, logic and sophism, their respective differences had just brought them together, whereas it would have driven so many others apart. 

Eight years to the day of their alliance they stood in the garden in Scully's childhood home, surrounded by friends and family, mostly Scully's family considering the circumstance, the two were officially joined in the eyes of God and the world. 

The real truth of the matter though, was that they were already joined, they were already whole. 

Scully found herself reflecting on this as she was swept up the aisle by her oldest brother Bill, who had agreed, rather reluctantly, to come to the wedding when he had been asked to give his baby sister away. The most surprising thing of all though, was how civil he had been to Mulder in the months since their daughter had been born. She could only hope the peace would last. She caught her mother's eyes as she approached her fiance, and smiled at the sight of her baby daughter gurgling happily in her grandmother's arms. Liana was a blessing, their blessing, and Scully could feel a smile sweep over her face just at the sight of her. 

All her thoughts were swept aside though as she approached her partner, who stood at the alter, patiently awaiting her. His eyes locked onto hers and they both smiled in unison. The two had been frightened that the day would never come, but here it was, here they were. Together, and that was all that mattered. 

Everything seemed to fade into the background as Mulder took her hand, his eyes were filled with such love and adoration that she almost wept. Nothing else mattered here and now but the two of them. She was unmindful of the things the reverend was saying, and yet hyper aware of it at the same time. The words seemed to blur past her, imprinting themselves into her heart forever as she blinked, aware that she was supposed to be speaking. She smiled one of her beautiful rare smiles that made Mulder's heart jump, and recalled the vows she had written down on paper time and again, trying to perfect her emotions with words, when she knew that no words could ever express all that she felt for him. 

"Mulder," she grinned a bit wickedly and added, "Fox," she could see the wry smile starting in his eyes, and she knew she would get it for that later. 

"I don't know how to say what I feel, no words, no trite vows could ever express how much I feel for you. How grateful I am to you for giving me all that you have... the strength of your beliefs kept me going in the darkest times, and your love was the only thing I had to hold onto when our world was falling apart," she could see the shimmer of tears in his hazel eyes through her own insipid vision. 

"You have been my best friend for so long, you are the only one I trust. And the only one I will ever love. For a long time I was afraid, afraid of losing you and afraid of losing myself in loving you. I'm not afraid anymore, I believe...I believe in this," she gripped his hand in her own. "I believe in us," she slipped the golden band onto his finger and smiled through her teary eyed vision. "Forever..." was all she whispered. 

Mulder stared at her for a long moment, their hands clasped tightly. How was it possible that this incredible woman loved him so much? With a slow smile, he began his own vows. 

"Dana," the blatant use of her first name startled her a bit and she grinned. "For a long time I didn't trust anyone, I didn't really love anyone. Not until you walked into my life eight years ago. You challenged me with everything you had, you cared for me, and when nobody else believed in me, you did. All these years you have been my constant, my touchstone," he saw her grin at the familiar words. "And I have tried so many times to make you understand just how much I love you, but words were never enough. I told you once that you made me whole, it was true then, it still is. Without you I am nothing, you keep me honest and you have saved me in so many ways..." his vision dimmed with tears and he blinked them away as he slid the cool golden band onto her finger. "I have always wanted to believe...now I do..." he brought her hands to his lips and kissed them gently. "I will love you forever."

And then she was kissing him with a passion that he cherished so dearly. With a grin through their kiss, he pulled her away and cupped her face in his large hands, meeting her eyes and seeing only love there. He chuckled softly and pulled her lips to his once more, in a soft and gentle kiss that sealed their union, and ended a journey that had begun eight years ago. 

Through love and loss, tragedy and joy, trust and friendship and so much more, the two had always survived. And after years of searching, they had finally come home. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Epilogue

DKM

Journal entry.

They say love is the best thing in the world, and for a long time I wanted to believe it. But I was to cynical, it proved to asinine for me. I never thought that there could be such a sweeping emotion that can make a soul, or break one. I was afraid of love, of getting lost in that sea, and when I met Mulder I knew that it could easily happen. I remember looking at him one night, across the confines of our office in the middle of some meaningless debate, early in our partnership, and thinking to myself: 'I could fall in love with this man...' from that moment on I had attempted to maintain a professional distance, all the while I kept falling and convincing myself that I did not love this incredible man, I would not. 

Needless to say, I failed miserably at it. And it's one of my few failures I am happy about. In fact, it was the best thing I ever did. 

In the end, it all comes down to a matter of trust. Whether or not I trusted myself to let go of everything that inhibited me, and whether or not I trusted Mulder to take care of me. 

But I've already stated that Mulder is the only one I trust. It's more true now than ever. He loves me so utterly and completely sometimes I think he is amazed by it himself. 

When I walked through the door of the basement office all those years ago, I had no idea what to expect. Within the first few minutes of my arrival I found a brilliant, if not spooky, man who had a seeminly endless wit and dry humor that grated on my nerves. That was the man who argued with every single one of my explanations with his crazy theories. 

Over the years I discovered a loving, caring human being, the most selfless, protective and determined person I have ever known. 

I thank God every day of my life that he loves me. Mulder blames himself sometimes, says that he took too much away from me over the years. In truth, he gave me so much more than he could ever imagine. 

He gave me his trust, his life. He gave me a beautiful, perfect child, a daughter that I love as much as I love him. A beautiful being that gained her father's stubborn will and protectiveness. Liana is our own miracle, proof of our endless bond, and always our wide eyed beauty of the moon. 

And more than anything, Mulder gave me his love. That undying love that has never faded, never corrupted, that pure love that I cherish more than my own soul. 

He called what we have 'delectation' once. He said it was utter rapture and joy. He was right. He is my soulmate, my true love. 

My husband is my home. I've finally come home. 

~ ~ ~ ~

FWM 

Journal entry. 

I often look back on the things I have left behind me, these things that I have lost along the way. It would appear to anybody else, that I had lost everything, that I should have died a thousand times over, if not from circumstance, but from grief. 

But in truth, I have gained so much. I have a beautiful daughter that gained her mother's hair and kindness. I have the most perfect woman in the world standing by me everyday, still putting up with me and my crazy ideas. 

Life is as perfect as I've ever had it, more perfect than I ever hoped it would be. 

Scully gave me so much, she completed me, she loved me. 

I still find it hard to believe sometimes that she loves me, but she does, ceaselessly and without condition. I told myself once that I would not fall in love with her, I wouldn't hurt her as well. But in the end, I could not control my own heart. 

I was bound up in a quest that seemed to have no clear end. I still miss Samantha, every day of my life I miss my baby sister. But she is no longer the main focus of my life as she once was, she hasn't been for a long time. My quest was a noble one, Scully acknowledged once, but I was looking for answers to questions that I could no longer ask. Samantha is gone, I know that, my parents are both dead, and the many of the answers I was looking for, may be dead along with them, I know that now. I have made my peace with it. I have come to terms with Samantha's death, as much as I don't want to. I know that wherever she is, she is at peace now, and so am I. Someday I will see her again, maybe not in this life, but someday, and as long as I hold onto that hope, I am content to let her go. 

My life is no longer as wrapped up in noble quests and searching for the truth as it once was. Does that mean Scully and I have stopped searching? Far from it, it's just not the most important thing in our lives anymore. 

We have traveled a truly amazing path together, Scully and I, we have seen things that most people would never dream about. We have gone through our ups and downs and come through together. It is amazing how blessed we have been. Blessed with a family and each other.

I will never forget the path we walked to get where we are today, it was hard, and it was dark, but in the end we gained so much we never even expected. The road was long, but it led here, to each other. 

It's amazing really, those men put the two of us together in hopes that she would bring me down. But she held me up, she kept me going. I wish I could have seen their faces when they realized how stupid they were. Instead, they found other ways to hurt us, but it was never anything we couldn't handle, as long as we had each other, we have always been strong. 

I have been searching for over twenty years for the truth, in hopes that it could save me. Scully was the thing that saved me though, and she is the one who believed in me. I was looking for the truth and I found it in an unexpected way. I found out how much I loved her, I still do, over the years our love has florished and grown, never fading once. 

In the end, we had lost so much, and it would seem that we have lost at times.

But Scully was right when she told me that we have won overall, its the little things that have let us win. We have our lives, we have our family, and we have each other. And we are happy now. 

We have won. 

The End

Oh my god... I did it...

This was my first serious piece of fanfiction, and certainly the longest I have ever written. But I would have never gotten this far without my friends who told me I was a great writer, and my great beta readers who helped me out. And of course I would have gotten nowhere at all without all the debating and idea tossing with my friend Cheri. Cher, I don't know how many times I am going to thank you ; } 

And of course, I owe a lot to all those fanfiction authors out there who inspired me so much with their own stuff. So this story is dedicated to all you authors, thank you for your awe inspiring stories!

And I must of course, thank my sister Alaina, who introduced me to the world of the x-files many years ago and taught me what a shipper was.

And one last thanks to Daphne, who listened to me ramble on and on about the X-Files even though she has never watched a single episode! Thanks Daph, I owe you one. 

And now I leave you with this quote from the creator himself; Chris Carter: 

"You know, Mulder and Scully love each other. That's kind of obvious 

if you've been a fan of the show. They have a very intense relationship 

that's based on mutual shared passions. The natural extension of that 

would be a romantic relationship." 

-Chris Carter, June 13, 1998 

Entertainment Tonight

"But you've saved me. As difficult and frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person. I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I want to do this alone. I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win..." 

--Fox Mulder

Fight the Future

Thank you for reading everyone...

I can't believe it's over...


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